Davis Street in downtown Evanston, where GetPrinting3D opened at No. 820 Photo: Awkwafaba / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
A small storefront at 820 Davis St. has put Evanston in a national conversation about whether 3-D printers belong in retail stores. Crain’s Chicago Business included GetPrinting3D in a July 2013 look at companies testing the idea, alongside a Chicago shop in River North that pitched the same promise: think of an object, print it, take it home.
GetPrinting3D opened in Suite 111 of the Technology Innovation Center with a ribbon-cutting in early June. The Daily Northwestern described it as one of the first shops of its kind in Illinois. It is a showroom for a company based in Ohio, with Ben Staub as founder.
What the shop sells
The showroom displays printers for both industrial and hobby use, so a visitor can watch a machine run and handle finished pieces before deciding anything. Near the entry end of the line was the Cube, a second-generation consumer printer priced at $1,249 when the shop opened. Customers can shape plastic models with free online design programs. Pricier machines offered finer precision and color printing.
The target customer list was deliberately broad: individuals, hobbyists and companies. According to the student paper, the company had already done work for GE Aviation, which found it easier to make small batches of parts than to order them in bulk. Marketing director Brent Cox said the company also hoped to spark interest in technology among grade-school children.
Hours and hiring
At launch the shop kept weekday hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Plans called for one full-time and two part-time employees, plus engineers as the business grew. An online store handled orders from customers who did not stop in.
Retail 3-D printing was an unsettled business in 2013. Consumer printers were becoming cheap enough to sit on a desk, but few people knew what they would make with one. Shops like GetPrinting3D tried to answer that by letting people see the machines first.
Walk-in visitors get a chance to see how plastic parts are built up layer by layer, something most people had only read about.
Customers who wanted more information could reach the shop by phone at 855-50Get3D or through its e-commerce site, getprinting3d.com.
Sources: The Daily Northwestern, Fabbaloo and Crain’s Chicago Business.
Daniel Okafor covers business, startups and the Innovators section for The Evanston Edge.
