New Marketplace view!

Today, we are proud to announce improvements to the way shoppers can discover great products on Shapeways. With improved Sort capabilities plus the ability to filter by multiple dimensions, including Category, Sub-Category, Tag, Price, Material and others, we're offering a better way for shoppers to travel through our vast catalog on a journey to find products of interest.

In the beginning, Shapeways allowed users to upload a 3D model, order it, and receive a 3D print. Gradually, around this nascent technology, grew a new community. As the community grew, so did the number of items coming out of our printers. This growing catalog of items meant 3D printing was no longer just for those with modeling experience, but also a way to create, buy and/or sell Products that happened to be made via a 3D printer.

Two years ago, we introduced a new way to discover and purchase those Products on Shapeways. With the introduction of a marketplace, our community (you!) was quick to respond to the initiative and opportunity to sell their products on the same platform on which they were able to create them. You guys began filling up distinct Categories with iPhone cases, jewelry, drone accessories, miniatures and much more. We now have nearly 25,000 Shops with thousands of products for sale publicly on Shapeways, and as these numbers continue to grow we will continue to improve the features and functionality of our Marketplace.

This release addresses some shortcomings of the previous experience. Previously, shoppers could not filter the catalog by material so we had no way to make use of the default material image, which in many cases is a digital material render--which we had spent so much time developing. We also couldn't make use of tag-centered browsing or offer the ability to browse and discover products in a specific material. You could not, for example, enter our marketplace and browse for rings tagged "engagement" and then filter by material for specifically those in silver, gold or platinum. And often, in-material photographs or digital renders were not available to compare side-by-side with other products in the same material.

As with all major feature releases, we will be closely monitoring how the new Marketplace is adopted and used. That data and feedback will be used to tweak things where needed, and we look forward to continuing to improve the experience. All of us here at Shapeways are constantly inspired by the creations of our Community. We strive to showcase them to the public in the best ways possible and we believe this new Marketplace experience improves the discoverability of those creations.

Check out https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace and let us know what you think!

Hi Aimee,

Looks useful, but I have a question. I design Miniatures for scale modelling, but the scales I use (1:35, 1:72, 1:100; 1:16) are not on the filter list at the top left - how do I get these added so folks can search for say all 1:35-scale items? And, how do I "tag" my models so this filter picks them up?

Regards,
Tom

Hi Tom:

The tags on the filters certainly do not reflect every single scale (or word, for other categories) on the site. We've chosen popular scales as examples and can/will continue to add to the featured list.

If the tag does not show up on the featured list, customers can search for those tags specifically. To make sure your model is tagged, go into your Model Edit page and click into the "Details" tab. Right above "Images" there is a section to add tags. I'd suggest for scale models to add both : and / in the case that shoppers search differently.

Hope that helps! Let me know if there are any other questions I can answer for you.

Thanks!

Hi Aimee,

Thanks for the reply! I know SW has to pick and choose with things like scale lists. I'd strongly suggest that Miniatures needs to have ALL the "common" modelling scales represented, which for plastic kits includes 1:35 (the dominant military scale), 1:72, & 1:76. If nothing else, these should be added to that left-hand filter for rapid searching. (If you look at most retail model websites, they have similar pick-lists of scales so customers don't need to spend ages looking at things that are the wrong size - modellers tend to favour a specific scale.)

As for us tagging things to match the scale filters, it would help if SW added more instructions to the guidelines pages to spell out exact formats etc. I already add tags like "1:35 scale" to my designs, but could use firm info about whether the filter will find it, as opposed to just "1:35" or even "1/35" (ie, does adding the word "scale" to the tag make it not fit the filter?). I know these scale filters are rather new, so it is understandable that rules haven't really crystallised yet.

Hope this helps!

My suggestion is simpler. Discard the 1: and the 1/ completely.

Add a field to the database to store a value called "Scale or Size". Then, add that field to the search routine.

For miniatures, it would mean "Reduction relative to 1:1 original"
For jewelry, it could be "Ring Size"
For shoes.... <grin>

====
Admittedly, it'd be a bit odd for the system of specifying the height in millimeters of a figurine versus the height of a 6' human.

Hello SW,

I noticed that many popular products are not displayed anymore in the filtering!

For example: one our most popular kits: http://shpws.me/D1eJ is not shown at all.
If you select 'scale models' and look at 1/160 scale, this kit should pop-up at number 5 or so. Now it is not displayed.
If you are searching on price level, this kit will not be shown at all. That is not good.

All our products are tagged and used to show up properly.

I also noticed that some of our products that are slow sellers pop-up at pretty high places.

Maybe your algorithm is not working properly.


Can you please fix this?

Regards,
Maurice

Yep, same as above - most popular filter doesn't show my most popular items either.
Top of the list and further down I have numerous private models, some of which haven't sold once!

Paul

My popularity sort is way off too. Please fix?

I agree that the "popularity filter" is funky. Like showing recent product.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Also re: algorithm - we are looking into it. If it's helpful, tags connected to top level categories (ex: jewelry instead of the subcategory rings), correspond to top level categories. I will take a look at filtering those down into subcategories as they make sense but just wanted to throw that out there.

Stay tuned - we're digging in.

Thanks!

Still the same...

Please can someone explain how this works as opposed to how it is supposed to work?