New Filament Sampling Site - filabits.com

[filabits]

I can see your point. But surely you can just adjust the cost of the samples to account for denser filaments ?
Ie: if I buy 5metres of colorfabb bronzefill, I know it'll cost more than standard pla as it's 3x denser.

Likewise 10 metres of the 3dx nano esd petg by 3dxtech will cost me more as well - because it's more expensive filament.

Plus both the slicers I use give me length of filament used NOT volume.

Why not just sell by volume and/or length ?
I'll make a bet that most people will find it easier to buy by length.
And a lot of your customers will be newly minted 3d printer owners trying stuff out. As well as those like me who just like trying out weird and wonderful filaments :-)

One thing I will suggest. sell each sample in a bag with little silicon sachet with a sticker on stating what the filament is. Like this:

samplebags_800x423.jpg

I added the spools, but otherwise that's how my samples currently come. Otherwise if you've got a lot of samples - it can be real easy to get them mixed up.
Those spools are actually a bit too small. I've got some much better expanding spools that I'll be posting on 3dshare.net. That hold the stiffer, less bendy filaments much better :-)

expandspool_604x600.jpg

Our samples are shipped in individually-sealed & labeled bags with desiccant to ensure the factory quality is maintained. I think some product photos should be added to the website to show that, because you're right, different filaments can look alike.

DSC_0006.jpg

Your expanding filament spool is clever. I'll have to check it out when you post it.

But back to sample units...I understand that a given length could be corrected for differences in density, but part of the reason in electing volume units was to not put 3mm dia buyers at a disadvantage. Using Taulman3D's In-PLA for example, 5 meters of 1.75mm dia filament is about 1.5% of a full spool. For a buyer of 3mm diameter filament, the same 5 meter sample would be about 4% of a full spool. So a customer buying a 5 meter sample of 3mm filament would have to pay more than twice the amount the 1.75mm customer does.

This is assuming samples are sold by the same lengths regardless of diameter...which all do currently. One could sell 1.75mm filaments in 5m and 10m samples, and 3.00mm filaments in 2m and 4m to put the two on equal cost terms. Thoughts on that method? There are ecommerce challenges with this method, though

Trust me, this was all deliberated as filabits was being set up. Volumetric units solved the issue.