Hey Dizingof,
Nice poll, and interesting subject matter. I think the mystery is not why sales are slow, but rather why we have sales at all.
Shapeways, as a site, is 95% geared towards people that want to make stuff, as opposed to people that want to buy stuff. For sales, you want the latter. Shapeways is already a great place for people that want to make things, but if you want to sell your wares, it is a limited platform. I'm not complaining - sales have actually not been that bad for me, I always say it 'pays for the mortgage', but I'm pretty sure I've generated the larger part of the sales myself, as have most people that are doing well on Shapeways.
If I could have one wish for Shapeways, it is that they would give more attention to the sales aspect of their business model, but it seems that it is not really their priority. I think the really good products out there, that are well presented and available at the right price, could perhaps sell 10 - 100 times more, if a few things changed:
1) If Shapeways had a sales portal
I mean something like Yanko or Charles&Marie, where people come primarily to find a nice present for a friend, family member or themselves. There has been talk of various competing platforms that would do exactly that, by the way (such as the one proposed by Droog Design), so this is where I expect SW to feel some heat, in the near future.
2) If there was no $25 minimum order
This is a biggie. Look at the contradiction. Shapeways (and 3d-printing in general) is mostly good and competitive at creating small items - buy you can't really sell small items, because of the minimum order. I have to resort to things like '2-packs' to get around it, and how many people are willing to buy that? I'd much rather pay a little bit higher start-up cost, and a realistic shipping price, if that then allows me to sell a $10 product as well.
Don't get me wrong - it's great that Shapeways is around, otherwise there would be nothing to improve upon. But it is always good to think about the potential that is there.
Cheers - Michiel