Everyone’s favorite warehouse club, Costco, will be selling desktop 3D printers starting September 19th. The machine that the US’s second and the world’s seventh largest retailer has decided to introduce to their 3 million customers is the ROBO1 3D printer from San Diego-based ROBO 3D. That’s exciting news for the manufacturer, the retailer, and the industry as a whole.
Beginning next week, the ROBO 3D team will be setting off on a 30-day road show to five different Costco stores in Southern California, where they will be demonstrating their ROBO1 3D printer and selling it with two 1 kg spools of filament at a price of $729.99. Braydon Moreno, CEO of ROBO 3D, commented, “With our budget priced R1 3D printer, we want to give families the opportunity to create, from the father, mother, on down to the children. Partnering with Costco is the beginning of a relationship that will help bring 3D printing to the masses and allow consumers the ability to create anything in the comfort of their home.”
If the pilot program does well in these locations, they should expand to other stores, giving the manufacturer even greater visibility and exposing further audiences to the technology. 3D printing enthusiasts can be satisfied knowing that the sale of 3D printers in such a prominent store is a pretty significant milestone in the history of the industry. Despite some opinions that desktop 3D printers would not make it into the homes of most consumers, a major retailer of home goods has bet that shoppers would like to get their hands on the technology as they purchase huge supplies of toilet paper and Cap’n Crunch for the family.
As an aside, I’m also happy to hear that 3D printers have hit Costco before the company’s competitors, as the warehouse store is admirable in its treatment of employees, offering non-managerial wages between $11 and $21 an hour to US employees, with almost 85% of their employees receiving health benefits. There couldn’t have been a better partner for the 3D printer manufacturer!
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