Amazon Expands Into Selling 3D Printer & Supplies

June 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Amazon Expands Into Additive Manufacturing

Kyle Maxey posted on June 10, 2013 | Comment

While Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos may believe that 3D printing is still a long way from changing the way industry makes and distributes products, his online marketplace isn’t shying away from the opportunity to sell the revolutionary technology. In a recent addition to its website, Amazon has decided to add a new section to it’s “Industrial & Scientific” market category – “3D Printers & Supplies”. A quick look around the section gave me the impression that Amazon is still catering to the Maker segment of the 3D Printing community. Among the products available are the MakerBot Replicator2, the LulzBot AO-101, the Airwolf3D and a number of other models.In addition to printers Amazon is offering a vast selection of both ABS and PLA filament, inspection and repair tools as well as enough parts to design and build your own 3D printer. If you’re in need of a CAD solution, Amazon is also offering a number of software packages. However, in my quick glance around I didn’t come across any 3D modeling packages that would be suitable for designing 3D printable models.

While Amazon’s dedicated 3D printing section is still in a pretty raw form at the moment (most printers have little to no product description, and just highlight a products key features) the online giant’s entry into the 3D printing marketplace is a welcome addition. As the section grows it’ll likely become a major factor in driving down the price of the technology, at least at the Maker level, and further accelerate widespread 3D printer adoption.

Filed under TMT Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

Leave a comment