The grand opening of the Shenzhen flagship store of Creality 3D: The 3D printing market shifts to offline experiences | The front line

Text by | Zhang Ziyi

Edited by | Yuan Silai

In December 2025, Creality, a consumer-grade 3D printing manufacturer, launched the operation of its global super flagship store at the "Eye of the Bay Area", a landmark in Shenzhen.

36Kr has learned that the establishment of the flagship store is an important strategic adjustment by Creality in the context of intensified market competition. In the past few years, the consumer-grade 3D printing market has witnessed significant growth. However, as the user group has expanded from niche professionals to mass makers and household users, "technical education" and "product experience" have become new bottlenecks. Traditional e-commerce pages and video demonstrations can hardly fully replace users' intuitive perception of the 3D printing process and their judgment of the finished product quality.

Covering an area of over 600 square meters, the Shenzhen flagship store of Creality mainly serves as a platform to provide a complete and immersive display of the 3D printing process. The store showcases Creality's product lines covering three mainstream technologies: FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling), Resin (Stereolithography), and laser engraving/cutting. Consumers can closely observe the working principles of different technologies here. For example, they can see how FFF/FDM devices stack plastic consumables layer by layer to form objects, how resin printers create high-precision details through ultraviolet light, and how laser devices cut and engrave on different materials. This "panoramic" technology demonstration aims to make 3D printing technology no longer an abstract concept but a tangible and understandable creative process.

In addition to the equipment display, the flagship store also features a 3D scanning experience area for converting physical objects into digital models, as well as a workshop space dedicated to maker exchanges, skill training, and product experiences. By regularly hosting courses on 3D printing, modeling, and design, the store not only functions as a sales terminal but also becomes a community center, providing users with a place to learn and share ideas. This service model aims to extend the user's usage cycle and enhance their loyalty to the brand ecosystem.

For Creality, the strategic significance of this flagship store is mainly reflected in two aspects. Firstly, it helps to improve the user education system and brand awareness. In the highly competitive market of hardware parameters, physical stores are effective carriers for establishing brand differentiation and trust. Through a full-process display, they can effectively educate users, significantly reduce the entry barrier for new users, and thus improve the sales conversion rate.

Secondly, it explores the new retail model and service ecosystem. The flagship store is not only a window for product display but also a "testing ground" for Creality to test new retail service models. Through offline customer feedback, behavior preferences, and in-store interaction data, the company can more accurately guide its product R & D direction, optimize service processes, and gradually expand its business focus from simple hardware sales to a comprehensive ecological model of "hardware + consumables + services".

Creality said that it hopes to make 3D printing technology a creative way that everyone can participate in through the flagship store. The opening of this store will also be regarded as a key sign that the consumer-grade 3D printing industry has entered the stage of offline experience and ecological competition.