Possibility of free shipping for sellers buying their own products?

The only real concern I have with the new pricing is the shipping aspect, in regards to ordering test prints of my own items.

I live in Australia and anytime I would want to order a test print I did. But now it will cost me $20 extra to do so. Just in the last few weeks I've spent close to $140 on test prints over 3 shipments, and under the new system that would have cost me approx $200.

Another example would be a small item that costs $4 to make in WSF would end up costing $24 to just see a test print.

So is it a feasible idea at all for sellers to get free shipping when ordering their own items?

Here here!

This is an excellent suggestion. It seems that Shapeways' business model must have been suffering, otherwise I cannot think of any reason for the price hike on both materials and shipping other than an increase in profitability.

I can maybe tolerate one or the other, but both? That hurts all of us.

Slightly OT: Does Shapeways have a forum or news post or something that indicated these changes were to take place, and that maybe I just didn't know where to look? I'd like to avoid these unpleasant surprises in the future.

$20 next day delivery to Australia? That's a snip.
I pay a minimum of £10 (about $15) for any next delivery within the UK.
Welcome to the real world.

It's all well and good to say 'welcome to the real world' but in the real world
the shipping isn't next day.....quickest it's been is 4 days (that was once) and on average its 10 days from the notice of shipment....

If the $20 is in fact for next day delivery that's fine, but in that case I think many would prefer a cheaper option even if it takes a little longer

Yes, same here in Brazil. I also would prefer to wait longer but have a cheaper option.

Totally support this!!

CGD

Faster "will it print?" dance would be a start and doable. So would be getting some final rules about sprueing and grouping, as that is common when testing new items. Free shipping? They just made shipping explicit, put start up price to everything and changed volume price slightly, so only products which are cheaper are big items.

Instead of waiting weeks to get items examined, because the machines are broken/overloaded, try to examine the files ASAP so any errors can be corrected early. After all, they have been requested and if they are OK, they will be printed, so the money has been already commited.

Also, with new shipping policy the orders should be "all or nothing", which is another reason to examine everything early. Waiting weeks to get a "too thin" in one file, fix it and reupload, then wait more weeks to get a "too thin" in another item... that doesn't encourage prototyping new products. UPS would be the only one getting the bonus if 5 items became 5 boxes, caused by orders being split into one print done and the rest a coupon that will incur more shipping fees.

An alternative to full cancelation would be print and store items while rejected ones are fixed, then ship everything, or ship whatever is ready every month or three.

That is why free shipping for test print of small quantity (or even only one unit) of prototypes is good and important. Once you fixed that model, later combined order would not and should not have "too thin" type error hindering prompt production.

But yet again, Shapeways seems to be adopting a policy of once encounter a single whatever error, they stop checking and reject the model. So resubmitting the model still can be rejected due to a previously error not noticed.

Even for models already printed before, once the checker find a previously unnoticed error, the printable model will be rejected again. That is my experience.

CGD

Robo,

I totally understand how you feel. I have gone through a lot of frustration over how expensive the cost of printing is at shapeways, and that we now we have to pay for shipping too.

So, I looked into Ponoko (more expensive printing or the same depending on material, and charges more for shipping)

So then I looked at I.Materialize (WAY more expensive printing even when I wanted to order 50 of the same item which did bring the price down per unit, but nothing close to SW's price, and more expensive shipping)

So then I looked into numerous other smaller companies (some times as much as 10 times more expensive to print, and usually charged more for shipping)

So, then I cam back to SW and am happy that the current price adjustments is all they did. They are SOOOOO much cheaper than any other option I could find that I am accepting it as a blessing that they even exist.

Anyone upset about the price increase, I beg you, please upload your objects to SW competitors, and you will quickly find that SW is the cheapest, and often by a lot.

After that, I feel like complaining about the price here is kind of like complaining to Mc Donalds that you want them to lower their dollar menu.

I highly doubt SW is making much if any profit on the shipping when you look at the price to ship plus paying people to package it and the cost of the box and packing materials.

Most if not all of the companies I spoke with won't check the object for mistakes right away. Some will print it and when it fails, charge you anyway. They expect the person uploading the print to be responsible for that. I always check in the program, "Netfab Studio" to make sure my wall thickness is right, and that the object is water tight. I have never had an object fail to print after that.

SW may be a bit ahead of its time. They are bringing an incredibly expensive tech to the masses. Most companies doing this only expect to be dealing with engineers and companies prototyping objects before they spend millions going into full production.

Lincoln

And if you are selling products produced using 3D printing, the profit do not justify the cost, then DO NOT produce the product using 3D printing. If that is the only method you can make it, bad luck, it is not your time, go make something else some other way.
:evil:

(I am saying those to myself. Sorry to spoken them aloud.)
CGD

Yes CGD,

I am afraid I have said the same thing to myself many times.

I was looking into getting some stuff printed in WSF and having it plated by another company, and the best price I could find was $100 per item! That is more than I would want to charge the consumer for it. Sometimes that is just how it goes.

Lincoln

That's why I would fight for every chance to get a compromise, so that it won't hurt so much for both Shapeways and us...

CGD

i have no concerns about the profits....i've made nearly $3,500 from shapeways since the start of the year....lol...

i guess if i want to launch some new items i'll just have to save them up and order them all at once if no other shipping option is offered

It does suck a bit for those of us living further away (Im too from Australia)
But for me it just means that I need to do my ordering more efficiently. I have a couple of items ready to print, but Im getting a few more ready first so I can do a batch order and not have to spend 2-3 lots on shipping.

And yeh Im also feeling like other shipping options would be good, ie cheaper shipping that takes longer would be fine for many cases.
Would be interesting to see if other options are available, but I dont think free shipping for people buying their own items is a good idea at all, and Shapeways from a business perspective would never do such a thing, simply because theyd be at a loss on every object someone prints from their own account.

I have to agree.

Unfortunately the pricing has oncemore increased for small items
1. startup fee
2. shipping fee

Two points may of interest for us designers:
1. how can we(including shapeways) create a model which makes small items also attractive
2. is shapeways interested to award also the designer's work (currently we pay the full costs as normal buyers in verifying those items which should afterwards make the business for shapeways.

1. Currently I have a blender script which can attach small items to a carrier. thus handling is easier to shapeways and price is reduced for the customer since the customer has to pay the handling fee only once.
A procedure which can make this automatically would be fine.
A customer can then buy several items which are attached to a bearer in the background:
- shapeways has better handling
- customer has smaller costs by paying the handling fee only once
Not so easy but at least an idea

2. Shapeways could offer vouchers for successful sellers. Thus encouraging designers work when their work lead to business for shapeways.

Woody64

Totally agree with Woody.

I'd love to get the free shipping for test objects, but I know of no company that that does this.

I have made items with zazzle and cafe press as well as spoonflower and numerous other places. The first 2 places make printed t-shirts(and bags, shoes etc) and the last one makes printed raw fabric.

They ALL charge shipping to everyone. The only discount any of them give to designers is that they don't have to pay the designer's mark up. Also, they all charge as much or more than you would expect to pay to buy non-customized versions of the same item. We pay more because it is customized.

All of them will make your shirt or what ever, and if the colors don't come out how you like, or something else looks bad in the file, then you are stuck with it. It isn't those companies' fault if what you sent didn't work. They also all sell your work to other customers if you want to offer it, just like SW.

So, yes it would be nice for us if SW did something like not charging us as much for our first print, or not charging shipping for it. But, they would be using a business model that no other company thinks would be profitable.

Also, how many people would just make one test print, and then never do another one. They would be basically encouraging people not to make more than one, since they would be subsidizing people for only the first one.

Lincoln

Compromises? There are other things worth fighting for, because they will speed up things and save money... for everyone, so easier to get them:

- Things should be fully checked, or at least report more than a handful of errors. It will be less work for SW as all corrections will be done in one go, it may seem a longer process but it surely requires less context switches. Reporting 5 problems separately means 5 automated checks (SW resources wasted rechecking the correct parts), 5 loads by staff and getting used to what the model is about (more SW resources wasted). With full check it should be 2, the original with problems and the fixed one that will be printed.

- Implement some kind of autochecker to find simplest problems just after upload. It doesn't have to do a full strength analisys like if it was testing a bridge, an approximation would offload some work from the staff that checks files manually.

- If something gets printed but it caused some problems in production, report to designer without waiting for another order. Provide the broken parts with the finished one to demostrate the problem. Maybe even be conservative and suggest changes even if the thing printed fine (some things break if printed in different orientation). Get things fixed ahead of time, saving time and face.

- Orders should never fail partially, put on hold the full order until the designer decides what to do with the other items. Avoid wasted time consolidating coupons or packaging single items.

- Other shipping options, cheaper or less problematic than UPS.

- DIY cleaning option. Some people have to fine clean the items, so they'll not care to do the rough cleaning too and save money. A plus if it means the item survives shipping better.

If they can do what you listed, I can live with the shipping. THAT is compromise! Compromise is not just in terms of $$$$.

CGD

in response to the calls for better checking of the models, the responsibility can't all be on shapeways....

if you follow the guidelines and rules, and model your stuff accordingly it should go through no problems at all....

i've only ever once had a "we can't print that" email and it was expected, it was on an item i made for a friend that was quite large and i was just trying to see how thin i could get the walls....

aside from that everything else has been fine, if you take the time to make things correctly and check them yourself, shapeways current system works just fine. You can't expect them to do all the work....