Hi all,
We recently made a change to the way shop owners interact with products they upload in the form of requiring categories to be set on all model files that are offered for sale to others. This effects both models that are publicly discoverable, as well as private models that are discoverable via a privately shared url. We did this for a number of reasons in order to improve the experience both shoppers and shop owners have on Shapeways, some of which are as follows:
* There were a substantial amount of publicly discoverable models on Shapeways that had no category set and as such are quite difficult to find.
* Private models, unlike public models, very often had no category set and as a result, we were unable to display related interesting products of the same type to the shopper visiting the private model page. For example, your customer is more likely to want to see other rings rather than unrelated products such as train models if they are viewing a ring on a private model page.
* A fair amount of sales consists of private models; however without a category set, understanding what types of products people are using Shapeways for is considerably harder.
* * Over time, we want to know how Shapeways is being used, what types of products are being made and sold, etc, in order to be able to make better and more accurate decisions for improving both customer and shop-owner experiences. For example, these types of decisions could be anything from new material options to the types of promotional and discount offers we would give in the future, all of which are subjects that have a direct impact on both shoppers and shop owners.
That said, allow me to address directly the point brought up by Bathsheba about the future and private models. We have absolutely no intention of making private models publicly discoverable by other users.
We understand that the extra click may seem like an inconvenience, however we are certain that over time the experience on Shapeways will be better for everyone whether they create, sell, shop, browse or all of the above.
Your feedback is always valuable to us and we welcome the thoughts you are sharing with on this subject. Perhaps some additional feedback could be if there are models that don't fit any of the categories we list?
I hope this clarifies our intention and alleviates any concerns you may have had about changing discoverability of private models.
- Christopher Carter