Product Turnover Question

I'm brand new to Shapeways and I've been super amazed so far. I was able to design a ring mostly in Google Sketchup and with a few pointers and some help from someone on the forum I was able to get it accepted.

I'm pretty jazzed and now just waiting patiently for it to ship. My question is about the typical turnover time. I realize now might not be the best measure since it is the holiday season and there is probably an increase in purchases from certain parts around the globe but my 14 days for SS product has turned into 18 and I still am not sure exactly when it is going to be out of production with a shipped status.

Honestly, even that 14 days surprises me a little with how far it is coming to get to the U.S. but I am just curious to know what other people's experiences are. I am a tech ed. teacher and currently collaborating with the art teacher at my school because we would like to offer some entry level 3d design to the students and it seems like shapeways would be an awesome and affordable way to get the kids really interested in the whole process from creation to actually holding a physical product in their hands. Definitely the way of the future for our kids too.

Anyway, I'm just wondering how realistic it actually is that the turnaround is quick enough to make it a feasible program / unit of study or if it is too far out of reach.

What do the seasoned veteran's think? This is after all only my first order.

It may take longer because of the Holiday rush. Actually it probably will. The 18 days you speak of, were those week days? or did you count weekends? Because 10 for plastic and 14 for stainless is European work days. (Week days minus any holidays they have off for over there) I have always gotten my orders on the day that it should arrive. I know last year the holidays slowed things up, so it may be a little behind. So counting weekends you should see it between 18 and 20 days.

Not too sure, I was counting week days. I wasn't sure if Thanksgiving holiday was celebrated in Europe but I didn't think it was. My order was placed on Nov. 22nd.

I've had some correspondence with the customer service guys who did acknowledge that there had been a delay in the process. That's why I'm wondering.

My idea is that I can fit this unit into a 12 week period for my students. If we started with it and were able to order their models after 8 weeks of class, I am interested to know if they could reliably be completed before they move out of my class at the trimester at 12 weeks. Basically a 4 week turnaround or about 20 work days.

I'm in the UK, and have been ordering my own models regularly for a few months now. In my experience, plastic models turn up in about 2 real weeks (the as advertised 10 working days) and metal is about 3 weeks (14 working days)... things like Christmas, production hiccups and snow can delays things though.

Just got word from CS that my order will ship on Tuesday! Any chance it will make it here by Christmas?

That's 22 business days by my count.

New ship date is January 5th.

Anyone else having such huge delays or is it just my order of 3 rings?

So, I've been told 4 different times that my models have been delayed in production and to expect them at a different date. Each time, the production date is pushed back about a week.

So instead of 14 days for SS I'm now up to 40 business days not counting holidays or weekends that I will have waited to receive my product, and that is if what customer service has promised me is actually true. Which, so far everything they have told me has not been true.

I really want to give these guys the benefit of the doubt but I feel a little bit like I've been snookered and am debating whether or not I need to start in on the negative comments on all the review sites that I can find.

I noticed that Shapeways was featured on the Today show here in the US and maybe I'm just assuming the worst but since I can't see anywhere else where people are having such huge delays, I can only assume that certain priority has been given to certain customers / orders. Just bad business in my opinion. I realize that I am just one small order but at some point, someone should just tell me, oh yeah, you're getting screwed because of this and that, you might as well not get your hopes up. Trying to smooth it over and give false estimates is just annoying and people like me should be aware that this service is virtually unusable. At the rate I'm going, technology will have progressed enough to the point where I can just take my model and get it printed at Kinkos before it arrives from Shapeways.

Pardon my rant but I'm pretty disillusioned.

As far as I know there is no Priority given to any order over another. I can understand your frustration. I myself have only had a slight delay with one of my orders, and it was because it was designed in stainless and took 4 or 5 tries to get it to work. What design are you printing? And is it just SS or is it plated?

As far as Customer Service not telling the truth, they tell you what the production facility tells them. Shapeways doesn't produce the items themselves, they are like a bridge between us and production facilities. For stainless there are several steps in which several factors can cause a failure in the print. Either way I'll make sure this issue is known by the right people.

Yeah, I've asked specifically about my model and I have been told that the delays are not related to my model. It is just plain SS.

I'm a little worried that it hasn't even ever been in production yet and after this long wait, the icing on the cake will be that it is not printable or something.

I don't know, I can't really understand why else it would be taking so long. If the idea of Shapeways wasn't so dang cool, I would have just canceled my order a long time ago.

I will let you know when I get it as well as take some shots to show it off.

I'm excited. The wait has been long but I really do appreciate that I have had some contact through the whole process. As another member stated, the production might have been out of SW hands so it is nice to know that CS is available to help out.

My rings finally came. Check them out here:
<a href="https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=4331&start=0&" target="_blank"></a>


Thanks for the help from CS