Auto Product Updating

I've noticed that if someone orders a product it sits in their purchase que for a long time. If I get a notice saying its unprintable or has some errors, I update the product... but then if I update the product before they actually pay, they still receive the old version of that print and I receive another notice that the product couldn't be printed because they are printing the outdated product. Could there be some kind of change that will check to make sure before printing the product that has been in their que, if there has been an update to that same product, since the time it was added to their cart, that it will print the newest update instead of the older unprintable one?

That would be nice, a "This product has been updated, would you like to continue with your order, or would you like to order the updated version?" type popup.

Or just go ahead and print the latest version without an option. No need to even ask... make it an checkbox option in the sellers product page that will automatically search for updated versions and if one is available it will print it when it's time to print instead of holding the place for the old version in their cue. That's something I've noticed thou. Instead of pointing to the product mesh, it just copies the current mesh at time of ordering in the cue. Would also be nice if instead of getting an email when someone buys something, it you got the email when something was shipped instead or as well.

On it's face, that can't/won't happen. You are not considering the situation where the new model is significantly larger (or smaller) than the item was at the moment of initial purchase. The financial transaction has already been approved before the model goes to the printer. If the new model is say twice the cost of the original, Shapeways would have to "eat" the cost or deal with backing out a portion of the financial transaction, to replace it with a new charge that has to be finalized before the item can be printed. That means holding the batch, or removing the item from the batch... delaying not just this one item, but everything in the batch. Changing/altering the financial transaction gets very tricky with international bank drafts.

And, even if Shapeways was to "eat" the cost.. someone could hit them for thousands of dollars by changing a 10mm3 model into a 10cm3 one... in Gold.

Any update to a product could have changes that affect price, so to send the updated part with the original order the customer might need to be given a credit (not so hard) or charged more (a bit more tricky). I suppose additional charge amounts could be extracted from the designer mark up balance if they agree to it in their account set-up. Something like that would keep the sale and prevent any abuse loopholes that might take advantage of larger model changes. If the changes fall into the under 10 or 20 cent range for very small model modifications maybe there wouldn't need to be any price adjustments.

Yeah that sounds reasonable... I can understand if for example, I made a model that wouldn't print. A few customers put it in their shopping carts. The first print comes back as not printable or printing problems, the seller is notified and the model is updated and will print fine. Now, the rest of the customers end up getting the same unprintable model mesh instead of the fixed one. I'm saying that if the model ends up being unprintable and a update is made before any more models are printed, I can understand if there is a difference in price and that that difference should come out of the seller's markup for the item. That seems perfectly reasonable... as long as the model ends up being in the same general size/scale as the original model. If it is drastically altered, like from MM to CM, and the price difference is say above $1.00 then then current customer is offered the option of the update or cancel the order. If they want the update, their initial charge is suspended and a new charge is made in the new amount. That way Shapeways doesn't eat any costs, the customers are satisfied and have more idea of what's is happening with their order and everyone is happy! Make sense?

But here's what I see happening here... right now I've got a bunch of people that have many of my models in their shopping cue (many have been there for weeks). If an update to a model is made and someone has it in their cue, they could be notified before the sale has even gone thru if they want to the new updated version before hand and let them know the difference in price. Then you wouldn't have to worry about wether the charge has occured yet or not! No harm... no foul.

Well I can't say that I've had this problem. But if they did something like this they would also need to add an additional handling fee to cover the disruption to the ordering process. They freeze the design into an order to simplify tracking, production, and everything else. To the designer it may seem like a small change that may just be the difference of a few cents, but even if the model didn't change price at all there would still be an additional cost incurred by Shapeways to deal with the change.

I'd be more apt to create a system that would allow a designer to reimburse a customer or give them a replacement credit or discount on a future purchase if there's a serious flaw in the original design. If the goal is to keep customers happy and loyal something like that might make more sense.