We do not put coupons in the box and we do not have sales. Both of those imply that the price of the item is not actually the price. We are working to reduce the cost of filament as much as possible. We don't have wiggle room. When we find a savings we immediately pass it along.
A lot of manufacturers put coupon cards in with a spool of filament. Since we aren't doing that we wanted to do something else. Something that actually improves the product.
A coupon card can cost between $0.01-0.10. So we had to find something similar so that we don't mess with our cost goals.
Our solution - Toys! Really. We putting toys in the spools of filament. Bouncy balls and fidget keychains this time around. You will start seeing them as you open the spools.
They are not in every spool. And they will change over time. But we thought we might as well add something fun. (There are way to many rogue bouncy balls in the shop now. But worth it)
Also, to show that we really care about saving money, we are putting cash in some of the spools too. It might be a quarter it might be something more papery. We are gonna literally pass on the savings.
Hope you enjoy. Thank you all for supporting tangled as we work to drive the real price of filament down to $10.
One idea that might work with some of the people you have considered interviewing on weekend Slant updates, would be a card that on one side has an image of something that can be printed on any printer with a 100x100x100mm build volume, and the back side is a qrcode to download a printing optimizes 3mf file of that item. (Or an STL for those who don't know what to do with a 3MF file, perhaps with pre-sliced alternatives on Printables, or Bambu labs)
Just a thought for the future.
Is there any plan in the future to make filament with higher speeds in mind? The current PLA works great but only on slower speeds (which is pretty normal for print farms like the Slant 3D setup) but for faster printers it has issues such as matte-texture outer walls on parts. Most other places use plasticizer and other mystery ingredients, but I'd imagine it would add more complexity to the filament process.
I would enjoy if the toys would be correlated to a new products. A display of goods pre or post tounvailing would be two b8rds one stone for you. Example orange abs that just came out. Make a sample toy. Ball or chess piece or keychain etc. That way you are giving out samples of product as well. Also having the option to say no to random toy is important as many people are waste sensitive (best term I can think of) I am inspired by the filament videos showcasing the disparity in filament machines. Filabot and the ebay/ali special where terrible if you want to sell anything. Robotdigg has much better machines. I have historically made efficient machines. They…
That's a cool, fun idea. You guys are the best!!! People like to receive free stuff, no matter how cheap it is and especially in a thing they already have to buy.
This is why Slant is successful and will continue to be. You do positive things just because and not because of.