I need help under standing shipping costs

Hi all I am new to Shapeways, live in the USA-Hawaii.
I went to the Sahpeways shipping info page to see what the cost will be and it says: USA $6.45 and then mentions additional import fees.

Didn't quite know what this meant, 6.45 per piece? per order? per box? So I went on the forums and I saw some post about Shapeways printing now being done in New York , and its effect on shipping and customs charges, but didn't see any conclusive info to resolve my questions.

So my questions:

Is there some info page on the Shapeways web site on shipping that I am not seeing?

What does the $6.45 USA shipping charge include, is it per order unlimited to size weight and quantity of models printed?

If I am in the USA will I be paying import fees, if so how can I determine what they will be?

For USA customers are items printed and shipped from the USA?

Thanks Flubber.

Hi and welcome Flubber. It's $6.50 for the whole order whether you buy one item or two dozen, even if they have to ship it in separate boxes.

No import fees to US.

(Most of) the items are printed in the Netherlands, and bulk-shipped to NYC then split apart into separate shipments per customer.

Shapeways is working on getting some US printers.. they have one that I know of so far, but most of the work is still done in NL.

=======
It's Canada that is having some of the biggest problems with import duties at this time, along with a few others.

$ 6.50
(not $ 6.45)

"Flat fee shipping" means per order - regardless of size, weigh, and/or quantity of models.

The additional 19% VAT is for european customers only ( hooray :dead: ),
and Hawaii is an US state (you have a star on the flag, pos ?^^), so you won't have to pay import fees.


... but UPS still might rob you (like they do with the Canadians) ... I'm not sure about that last point.

Thanks so much for the info,

So I see $6.50 for an order.

Now lets say I want to have five separate objects printed
That are currently in five separate files
and I place the order for them all at the same time and preferably would have them all shipped together to me in one box would that be considered one order?

Or is an order considered on a per file basis, so in the above example I would pay the $6.50 five times.

Also is it true that a single file can contain separate objects? For example if I want to have five different style bracelets printed whats the best way to do it, set up fee and shipping cost wise.

Thanks,
Flubber

Hi Flubber,

An order is, whatever you order in one go, for example, my last
order has 8 different models, but I only pay one shipping fee.

A model is considered to be one model file.

One model file may contain many seperate parts (objects),
however some materials such as Silver and Stainless Steel
have design rules that prohibit multiple objects. Silver does have an exception to this rule though if the parts are natural pairs such as cufflinks or earrings.

With your bracelet example, if I were going for one of the Strong & Flexible variants as the material, I would model in a loop that holds all the bracelets together.

Paul

Thanks Paul, I am wondering why you woud do this since they are not tiny parts:

"With your bracelet example, if I were going for one of the Strong & Flexible variants as the material, I would model in a loop that holds all the bracelets together."

Can you please explain the benifits of this.

The volume of the loop will cost less than the cost of 3 x model set-up fee.

Yes I understand that having three objects in one file saves on set up fees, but what I was wondering about was do the three bracelets need to be connected to form one mesh or can one file contain three seperate meshes?

You can have separate meshes, that's no problem.

about the best example I can give is http://shpws.me/3Uzy

So any idea why Paul above recomended connecting the bracelets with loop?

Paul says - so that the handling for Shapeways production team is reduced and Shapeways will be less likely to impose a strict 'no multiple meshes' rule.