How Can Small Businesses Benefit From Owning a 3D Printer?
The days of a 3D printer being used only for manufacturing companies are long gone. We now use 3D printers for a wide range of business purposes and in day-to-day operations.
As 3D printers are opening up new avenues for small businesses, the benefits we can derive from them have grown tremendously. In fact, the value a 3D printer brings to a small business cannot be overstated.
If you’re yet to use a 2D printer for your business and wondering what the benefits might be, here are some of the major ones to consider.
Product Development
If you’re in a product business, a 3D printer can be a boon for you, especially in terms of product development. Because the average price of 3D printers is dropping, it may be the right time for you to start creating your own products instead of outsourcing them to other manufacturers.
You can create any number of prototypes of the product you choose to sell and save money in the process. Sometimes ordering products in bulk from third-party manufactures could lead to unnecessary expenses as most of them have a minimum order limit. Owning a printer will help you to produce the exact number of products you require.
Customizing Products
On several occasions, your clients may require you to customize the product they want. If you rely on a third party to get this done, it could prove to be a costly affair in the long run. With modern and compact 3D printers, customizing different items is a breeze. All you need is a good printer with easy-to-use compatible software.
Promoting Your Business
For any business to expand, proper marketing is required. And, that’s applicable for startups, family-owned businesses, one-person teams, mom and pop stores, and other such small businesses as well. If you run such a business, you can use 3D printers to produce customized products, such as 3D business cards, to promote your business and cut advertising costs. Such use of technology could also show your customers that, along with being creative, you also keep up with the times.
Providing 3D Printing Services
Having a 3D printer is not only going to benefit you but will also be beneficial to the people that you deal with. The popularity of 3D printing is growing in leaps and bounds and is rapidly becoming a lucrative industry. This industry has already become a billion-dollar industry. At such times if your business owns a 3D printer, your opportunities will grow limitlessly, and you can gain access to ventures that were previously inaccessible.
Besides profiting by providing 3D printing services within your business community, you can also produce products for other people. When you provide such services, chances are you’ll become the focal point in your local business community.
Cost Efficiency
As the price of 3D printers and their materials has been decreasing steadily over the past few years, it can become an affordable and vital asset to your business. A 3D printer can bring down your operational costs by about 70 percent, which could be a sizeable part of a small firm’s revenue. 3D printers reduce the amount of staffing and increase productivity drastically, enabling employees to concentrate on other tasks and areas of production.
Saves Time
In comparison to conventional printing methods, 3D printing is faster. Industrial 3D printers can be used to manufacture a large number of products in a short while. 3D printing is replacing traditional production methods slowly but surely as their methods are soon becoming obsolete as their manufacturing processes take several days. After all, time saved is money saved.
Due to their incredible production speed, 3D printers follow the on-demand production model. This completely removes the need to stock up in warehouses in the hope of future sales. This, in turn, benefits smaller businesses and is cost-effective.
The progress and the pace at which the commercial world is moving on has made 3D printing the next big thing. The SLS 3D printer by Konica Minolta comes with an advanced which is user-friendly, and when combined with the powerful hardware that comes with it, it produces top-notch products.
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