West3D announces discontinuation of partnership with Keene Village Plastics
West3D supports its relationships with domestic manufacturers whenever possible, and our relationship with Keene Village Plastics (KVP) exemplified this. Since our inception we have turned to KVP as our main supplier of filament, this was due in large part to the fact they had a spooless option, had a community reputation for quality, and had responsive service.
Over the past year, each of the reasons we chose to work with KVP have eroded. While we believe the filament quality is great, the quality control of koils has always lacked (and we’ve made multiple reports and attempts to rectify this) and color consistency even within a spool has at many times been poor. These are issues that could have been easily resolved with simple process changes.
Recently KVP has decided to discontinue their Koils, bringing their base price of filament to $34.97. Unfortunately the quality we’ve received does not justify this high price, and as a steward with a reputation of thinking about our customers first, we will be promoting lines of filament we believe are superior (more on that soon…)
As a partner, we expect our suppliers to proactively share product updates, and respond to our concerns. We learned about discontinued koils through a third party, and previous inquiries into product deficiencies have been met with inconsistent responses. Our request for information related to this discontinuation went unanswered.
Because of the events outlined above, we have decided to discontinue our partnership. If you purchased or continue to purchase existing stock of KVP we will continue to support you.
If you have any questions about this announcement or our commitment to you please let us know.