Buyers Name

In the email that we recieve notifying us of our sales, I would like to see the shapeways nickname of the person buying them.

I just got a mini rush of sales. I assume these were all bought by the same person. So today, I was curious who bought them.

But it's more than curious interest that sparks the need to know who is buying your product. Here are some good reasons:

-curiosity ... ok this is a good enough reason too

-buyer appreciation ... maybe in some cases, you would like to thank a buyer for a large purchase.

-promotion ... maybe at some point you have a promotion for Nth sale. "You are the 100th purchaser of this product, so you have won an all expense paid weekend in Guelph Ontario!"

-instructions/directions ... perhaps your item needs a little assembly or directions, and you would like to send these to the buyer through email or snail mail.

-product safety ... it's sad to say that in some cases people buy things to copy ideas. Being able to monitor your buyers will help to see if they are exhibiting a trend in this direction.

-Whystler

I was wondering about the same thing today Whystler.

I will add one more reason: An artist wants to know who buys his work. And this is not curiosity, it is related to the artist's work and professional development progress.

Subscribing..!

me too

Actually, I think Shapeways has just done some good promotion -- I'm told there's a 25% off on White Strong Flex sale, and judging by my inbox it seems to be working.

My opinion: I'd like if buyers have the option to reveal their names, but I wouldn't ask for it to be mandatory.

I like knowing my buyers too, especially the big ones. But it's also true that a lot of people are very security-conscious online, and they may not want to gratify your curiosity or get messages from you.

To provide instructions or documentation is a valid reason, but I think it would be better served by having a way to add one or more links on a model's page.

It would be nice if this worked, but I tend to think if someone wants to steal your idea, they'll steal it anyway. People can't buy from my site anonymously, and it doesn't stop them.

I don't know, I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't be mandatory to know their names. How many other sites like this don't give you that info? Ponoko, etsy, dawanda, artfire, 1000markets.. all of them do. If someone REALLY wants to mask their identity they'll use a fake name or something.

Unknown buyers, unfaced world. Somewhere in the deal in shapeways'shop, buyer's email is wrote. So, this address can be inclued in an auto-generate mail for the seller. I would like to develop 3d prints with Shapeways service for young contemporary french artist. Due to law, they have to produce invoice and to have the address of the buyers, because it's limited.
I hope you could do something for us.
Thanks.
Best regards.

Currently our privacy policy doesn't allow for giving out members names when they order something.

What we could do is add something somewhere telling people to send the Shop owner a message: either when they order or when they receive it.

Or we could ask people if it is ok for their profile to be given to the Shop owner.

We'll look into it and see what is possible.

I can't think of another site where the seller cannot see or interact with the buyer.

What is the benefit of a seller not knowing the buyer?

-Whystler

Privacy.

Shapeways is somewhat unique in their model of being a broker between buyers and sellers in that the seller doesn't physically create the product and doesn't ship the product to the buyer.
In addition the Shapeways privacy policy right now probably states that they won't give out a buyer's information to anyone. That would include sellers as currently written.

I can see room for the policy to change and allow a buyer to allow the seller to know who they are, but freely allowing a seller to know who is buying their products without notifying or requesting permission from the buyer has privacy violation written all over it.

I also feel the curiosity of wanting to know who bought my product. But I really agree with Bathsheba; make it optional at best, but not mandatory. Privacy is important and you would not want to loose out customers for that (because you might).

Could someone put out a plausible scenario whereby a buyer's privacy would be threatened by the creator/seller of the product? I am assuming that if the buyer did not want to be contacted, then they would not make their contact information available on Shapeways.

I'm not challenging the idea that privacy is an issue. I just want to understand the issue, because right now, I don't see it.

-Whystler

I don't know if there needs to be an actual threatening situation, I think people just like options and to be able to chose

I think that a 'thank the designer' button would suffice in providing the option to contact/ send a message/ send details to the designer of an item.

On your Shop page there is already a button "Contact the shop owner" if someone uses this button they send you a private message on the forum.

So it is possible for people to send you a message but we're looking at adding another method whereby people could upon ordering choose to tell you that it was they that ordered your item.

Is there any way to know the order number, without knowing the buyers name ? i think currently only order date is mentioned.
This way a buyer can provide that order number offline and be tied to an actual purchase for future discounts
( using co-creator for example )

I suppose some sort of demographics would be nice information. Maybe the option to add a survey to a product (or shop) so when they order, it asks if you would like to fill out a survey to send to the shop owners of your order?

____________

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/excitementproductions

I'm with Shapeways on this one... sort of. There is another business model like theirs where the customer is not revealed to the "artist" and that is the likes of Zazzle where items such as posters, t-shirts, mugs, etc are printed with a users design and shipped by Zazzle. The buyer is not revealed to the seller.

However, should I ever get to the point whre I'm making a lot of sales I would like to have access to sales information; i.e. countries where product is shipped, sales volume by item, profit per item, etc., etc.

Glenn

The last two you mentioned already are provided.

I can see both sides .. but. I sold two items .. one of each on May 26. On June 13 those same two items I sell 45 ea. Now .. I had posted when I uploaded the items that any buyer should do so at his/her own risk as I had not had them printed off yet. EVIDENTLY .. whoever bought them was happy with them since they placed that order for 45 ea. I don't have a burning desire to know who the person is (although I would like to) .. but I WOULD like some feedback. Seems to me that Shapeways as the "middle man" could at least re-direct a question from me to whoever the buyer is without in any way reveling who that person is to me .. or something as simple as "the person who created the object you bought would like you to provide feedback to the shop page" .. I mean .. come on.

Usually I do know who my buyers are because a large percentage of my sales are to 2 or 3 different people and if they don't talk to e before the sale they publish pictures on there sites after the fact.

However there are 2 things I would like to know that I don't always know.

1) For those that are not repeat customers how did they find me. Google Analytics gives me the view history but not if something translates to a sale or not.

2) I would like it if shapeways would include a card with a reference url asking them to review each of the items they got. The url could know what was in the order and give the customer 1 page where they could rate, and write reviews on everything they got. Would probably encourage a lot more to review stuff. Maybe even offer a raffle. each post sale review gets you in a draw for a monthly $15 gift card. it is surprising how much extra trafic a small potential gift like that can bring in.

I would at the very least like a city and country attached to each sale. It would not be any violation to privacy of the buyer.

Lincoln