System Critical Issues

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by paulslowey, Mar 2, 2015.

  1. paulslowey
    paulslowey Member
    I've got huge and critical discrepancies between all of my shop screens. Models taking days to appear, models remaining not-for-sale weeks after I make them for sale, plus loads of other issues (see below). Basically system failure apocalypse warning signs 101!!!!

    I sent the below emails, but have heard nothing back from Shapeways. Is their customer support closed? Do they just not care? I have customer requests waiting to be fulfilled and the Shapeways systems are totally screwed.

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    Hey Guys,

    A few HUGE issues with the Shapeway's search system at the moment. These should all be code RED!!! Other business should be halted until they are fixed.

    1. Under the Design tab, the My Models and Shop Inventory are totally unaligned between areas and within the same area. Eg. Under Shop Inventory if I filter by Not For Sale and choose Default versus A-Z sorting I get 9 pages of results using the Default and 4 using the A-Z. Both are totally incomplete. Also the My Models is totally incomplete after uploading about 60 new models yesterday and earlier today. Basically the whole thing is screwed!!!!

    2. When using the My Models search function in the Design area (where I spend 98% of my time finding items for my clients because Shapeways refuses to implement a search function within my shop!!!) I am now getting screwed up results. If I type in a complete name, the search returns nothing found. If I remove a few letters, the model I am looking for will show up in the list of results. This has been happening 100% of the time. When I search for short names I am left to put in only one or two letters which returns pages of results. Even more of a waste of my time!!

    3. If I type in Gallifrey Glam into the main search box (pretending I am a customer that I have spent lots of money reaching) it does not return a result for my shop. It simply brings up 2 pages of results with mainly other peoples items - when I have a shop and over 1,000 items in the shop which should automatically be tagged with the name of my shop!!! And why wouldn't a search result bring up my shop? Another HUGE screw up for any site pretending to be a market place.

    4. When a potential customer types in a search of their name from within my shop space (most of my designs are based around individuals names) - in the only available search box at the top right hand side, they are returned about 100x more results than they should!! eg If a customer types in Patrick - expecting to find the two items I have in my shop, they are returned 14 pages of items from designers who are not me!!! What a waste of my advertising money and effort.... but great for Shapeways to steal all my money and effort!!!!

    Can you please address and fix these ASAP. If you need some help fixing these fundamentally simple functions, please let me know and I would be happy to work for Shapeways to ensure they are able to reach the minimum functionality of any website in existence.

    Sad times as an active Shapeways shop owner. And this is just a few issues related to the search function. So much more needs to be fixed to get Shapeways anywhere near being a functional site that serves customers and shop owners. :(

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    Guys!

    You need to drop some serious effort into making your systems work.

    After waiting 2 days for uploaded models to show anywhere in the system, I downloaded the attached CSV today to complete prices (hopefully saving a few hours work as I click through the myriad of settings screens for 87 new models and getting notification to the customers) - and the models are nowhere to be found in the CSV!!

    This is TOTAL CRAP!!!! Any workflow and business process I try to put in place is brought to a screeching halt by some combination of fatal errors in Shapeway's systems. I need to add a week to client expectations to allow for trying to unravel Shapeway's ineptitude.

    Can you please fix this ASAP and let me know when I can once again try to use the most basic of Shapeway's cumbersome system to manage my business.

    See attached csv of today's download and you can use Virginia, Talia, or Marissa as test cases - they are finally in the shop, but not in the CSV.

    Yet again, constantly disappointed by having my time and money wasted by Shapeways. :(


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    This is worrisome!!!!

    11 days after putting these as For Sale and notifying a customer they were ready, they are still showing as Not For Sale in the Shop Inventory!!!!!

    I have models I put for sale yesterday which are still showing as Not For Sale. Nothing is moving. I want to let clients know that their jewellery is ready, but I am being told it's not for sale (and yes, the two boxes in the sell tab are ticked).

    This is LUDICROUS!!!! How are shop owners meant to run a business when they don't know if items are for sale of not in their own stores.

    Seriously guys - your systems are slap in the face to everyone who uses them!! Take responsibility, fix existing poor workflows, then modernise to provide systems that actually aid your stakeholders rather than making everything 1000x harder than any other platform in existence. Fire whoever is running this circus and get a professional on the job!!!

    Please please please please fix this!!! Shapeways is crushing all my hopes and dreams for this new venture and the hopes of my customers as their complaints about Shapeways pile up in my inbox!!!


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    Dear ShopCoach,

    I've been jumping up and down since 2014 about backwards systems at Shapeways that are insulting to both shop owners and customers. Can you help with a few of these no brainers that Shapeways seems to have missed or actively ignores.

    Customer searches:
    I have over 1,000 items which have distinct names that people want to find. I spend masses of money getting customers to my shop, where they are faced with only one Shapeways wide search option. They will go to type in their name and usually get returned 14 pages of guff that has nothing to do with what they are searching for. If they scour 6 or 7 pages in they may find my items that they came to find in the first place. WE NEED A SHOP BASED SEARCH FUNCTION.

    Unethical policies:
    Shapeways big up front policy is that a designer will never lose money for a system fault or even a design. SW has stolen loads of money from lost sales that have all been the direct fault of SW! To me the #1 is sending an email to a customer to tell them the design is faulty before SW even contacts the designer to discuss. HOW DUMB AND INSULTING IS THAT!!!! 9 times out of 10 the issues has been some over vealous operator hitting the cancel button when it is then discovered there is no issue. And in the mean time I have lost a customer, money, and ad spend.

    System issues:
    I have raise a number of technical issues that have started to appear and I get no response about -
    uploaded models not appearing for days,
    CSV download not reflecting current models uploaded
    items remaining not for sale weeks after they have been made for sale
    design section search not working for full names

    Massive Shop Failings:
    As a shop owner if I want to do any global changes I am screwed. For example -
    adding a prefix of suffix to a model title,
    adding, changing, or removing tags, and
    moving items to new shop sections.

    Reports:
    Apart from three quick sales reports I cannot get any meaning information about my shop:
    contact details of customers
    analytics about customers
    models which suddenly don't print because of change of SW policy
    models with corrupt files
    even the number of models in each section or search requires manual calculations by the shop owner (#pages x #items per page - difference on the last page). Seriously!!!!!

    I could go on with loads of other must have no brainers that every other out of the box system has, but SW has gone backwards!!!

    This is just the tip of the iceberg - so much more NEEDS to be done to get it up to 1991 standards.

    Please tell me I've got it all wrong and the above basic features are all hidden somewhere I've missed.
     
  2. 7943_deleted
    7943_deleted Member
    Hi Paul,

    We did get your email, and since there are so many issues to address for you, we've been chasing up the right people over the weekend.

    I'll post as many responses as I can today, just wanted to let you know that your feedback is heard, and we're not ignoring you!

    Best,
    Natalia
     
  3. 7943_deleted
    7943_deleted Member
    Hi Paul,

    Some answers for you in the meantime:

    The ability to have detailed shop analytics is unfortunately a ways away. We have been making incremental improvements to the CSV, but we know there's much more to do.

    With shop name search, we vastly improved it recently *IF YOUR SHOP NAME IS ONE WORD* (bathsheba, virtox etc are good examples) Your shop is two words, so while we work to improve shop search to include two words, my quick work-around solution for you is to either put an _ between the two words or join them into one word. I know it's not perfect, but it will help surface your shop when your customers come to Shapeways looking for your work.

    We are working hard to improve search, and on the horizon is the ability to search by user as well.

    I will have more answers as I get them, thank you for bringing this to our attention, I will keep you updated soon.

    Best
    Natalia