http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php Shapeways: Bring your creativity to life in 3D http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=32843&th=6157#msg_32843
and by that i mean you are not redirect to any page (!?)

You need to "figure out" that your basket icon has a counter of the items you ordered , click on it then choose if to go to the check out or to continue shopping ....

In my opinion that is a flaw in design.... "Order now" means NOW

Flyby surfers especially from search engines expect to be re-directed to a checkout page not get stuck on the same page they landed on.. and be puzzled what the heck now...


Newbies surfers / search engines traffic, when they hit the order now , they should be presented with the cart page immediately THEN either they click on "Go to checkout" or "continue shopping"

The buying momentum must be kept ...

Just try to recall when one of your models ordered then failed for printing and you ask customer support to notify customer that now he can order a fixed one.... well.. you get zero to very low % of re-orders - why? spontaneous buying.. you lost that buying momentum.. !


Anyway that's my take on this issue - besides you can see this kind of ordering flow on almost any e-commerce out there.

- what you guys think about it?















]]> dizingof 2011-08-17T13:43:27-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=32854&th=6157#msg_32854 dizingof wrote on Wed, 17 August 2011 13:43
- what you guys think about it?

What I think about it?
<polite mode on>
It's one of the thousand flaws and quirks on the shopping site and chances to get it fixed are
... are

... are

... are

... are

... ahem,

... low.

We have an expression in our language: vergebene Liebesmüh'
That's what I think.]]> trompevenlo 2011-08-17T16:06:48-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33026&th=6157#msg_33026 mctrivia 2011-08-21T19:52:30-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33030&th=6157#msg_33030 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&goto=2454 0

But not to change the point of the matter:
I agree the ordering flow is still not as transparent is it could be.

And it might be handy to have two buttons:
"add to cart" and "order now" ( or something similar)

I would expect an "add to cart" button to stay on the page, but at least give a clear indication something happened (a non-intrusive pop-up) perhaps. I think the current "view cart(x)" link should be more pronounced button like thing.

I would expect an "order now" to add to cart and direct me to the shopping cart page.

And the "continue shopping links on the cart page should probably be more contextual. If the user came from the gallery -> send to gallery, if they came from a shop -> back to that shop.


Another main thing killing the flow is, the slow load times, combined with the over-active use of Ajax, it limits the feedback/responsiveness to the user. (As also posted earlier)

For example the material choice on the top right, no need for ajax there, all material/price info could easily be in a javascript array, for instant responsiveness on change of material.

In general, because of the slowness, I find myself often turning away from the site to a later time.
For shoppers it is probably a showstopper.
]]> virtox 2011-08-21T21:21:25-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33050&th=6157#msg_33050 both for a customer/designer who wishes to order multiple designs without going thru the cart's page over and again and for flyby/spontaneous buyers who just want the item NOW and so are redirected to the checkout page immediately to conclude the order.



@ trompevenlo , @ mctrivia

I think i speak for every one when i say: i can tolerate all quirks and design flaws but not SALES BUGS.


* Co-creators i fulfilled were not logged on the xsl file..

* Co-creator from 30th of July still logged on the xsl file with the status "waiting for finishing" yet it does not appear on the to-do list nor email was sent ...
(waiting for reply from CS)

* Are sales logged/not logged in real time.. (?)

* This ..





** edit: haha as i expected.. every time i post some criticism minutes later i get "You've sold models which have been rejected" - this time picking on a 0.18 (!) of a mm to cancel a $50 order... (overall thickness is over 3mm, but if you try hard..and pick the right triangles you will find a thread with 2.82mm )







what a BS.





]]> dizingof 2011-08-22T10:31:26-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33060&th=6157#msg_33060
Unfortunetly shapeways is not totally open and honest with us. They do not report all sales. And they do not report sales when they happen. I know Kevin cook makes all his orders on Sunday but I never get order reports on Sunday I get them monday.]]> mctrivia 2011-08-22T12:11:07-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33061&th=6157#msg_33061
Unfortunetly shapeways is not totally open and honest with us. They do not report all sales. And they do not report sales when they happen. I know Kevin cook makes all his orders on Sunday but I never get order reports on Sunday I get them monday.]]> mctrivia 2011-08-22T12:11:42-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33063&th=6157#msg_33063 What do you mean exactly?
Orders placed on Sunday will appear in the over-view email send out on Monday morning?
Or does the date in the site- overview also say monday?
Did you contact Kevin Cook to check order nrs? Are there any missing?

@Dizingof:
Strange you don't get answers from service@shapeways:
Usually replied within 24 hours, perhaps 48 at max.
(both mine and of my customers) (and only workdays of course)

I have learned to keep my emails to CS concise and to the point:
Too much info leads to things being missed.
They only have a limited time to investigate and answer each email, so less info is better.

Anyway, I understand the frustration regarding wall thickness, I have had several order cancelled because I missed some slightly too thin parts. (especially on color)

But that is the result of trying to facilitate "mass" printing:
You have to have rules to keep the production flow steady.
So unfortunately 3mm is 3mm, not 0.1 mm less, they just have to draw the line somewhere. (and essentially they is the supplier, not Shapeways)
And if an order is cancelled, Shapeways is missing out on the order/money too, so I doubt they would cancel orders if not necessary.
Again it's the suppliers that probably make most of the rules.

@general
I don't really get is the "conspiracy" vibe here though.
Over the years I have sometimes noticed backdated orderlines appearing. So for whatever reason some orders might registered a bit late.

Do people have actual facts, that orders are not at all registered?

Anyway, in my experience I cannot really count on a steady flow of sales. On week it's hectic, next week it might be none.
And overall I see little correlation between amount of traffic and sales.
Way more important is the origin of traffic, some sources lead to sales, others only to views.

]]> virtox 2011-08-22T12:36:39-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33071&th=6157#msg_33071
Anyway i stated actual facts not a "conspiracy" feeling

When you get your payout skimmed by hundreds of dollars over 3 pay periods that's when you are hit with a bucket of cold water..

- this wasn't a one time $10 error , that was a systematic skimming of a shop owner/designer earnings!

Other than that i listed other "sales bugs" that were not yet resolved.


@mctrivia if you have facts of sales not logged on your xsl file - post about it otherwise its ,for lack of a better word, slander.. so be careful.


Bottom line: shop owners/designers must trust that the sales reporting system has no bugs and sales are logged in real time.

Otherwise it's a waste of time.













]]> dizingof 2011-08-22T13:34:02-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33072&th=6157#msg_33072
The entire work flow is set up to encourage miaakes in markup.
1) can't add markup at upload but by deault checkmarks to sell selected.
2) no way to add markup to all materials in one shot at model page. I have seen many models Wich were more expensive in wsf then bsf because creator only added markup to wsf
3) inventory page extremely slow presumably to stop people from using. Or the programers are ideits. No need for that much ajax. Javascript can add.]]> mctrivia 2011-08-22T14:55:21-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33161&th=6157#msg_33161
30-07-2011 Joint Stars 1 so009569 $5.50 $5.50 $0.00 $0.19 $0.19 $0.00 waiting for finishing Unsettled 57532 White Strong & Flexible


Last week i emailed support and Bcc'ed Barry about this bug -

so today someone made a co-creator under my name as the customer... and it is now showing on my To-Do list
(no email was sent to notify me of this new co creator..)

So that's how you fix sales bugs now days...



I will not fulfill this co creator as i did not order it.
- some other customer did and who knows if he/she still expect it to arrive someday ..



]]> dizingof 2011-08-23T16:18:43-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33175&th=6157#msg_33175 please read this


]]> trompevenlo 2011-08-23T19:35:46-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=33439&th=6157#msg_33439
I think there is another flow in your co-creators that could explain you have less orders than usual...
Even if I only checked the 19 dice of yours that are in the first page of the dice ordered by popularity, I suspect it is quite a general problem.
All of them are co-creators (and I understand why you are so affected by any co-creator issue) but when you try to personalize them, while I suppose the customer is expected to enter some letters like intials or something, there is a problem in the number of characters that can be entered:

Quote:

min 0, max 0 characters

That is no customization is actually available.
I don't know if it's on your side or on Shapeways side, but this must be very confusing for your customers...

Additionnaly once you click on the "personalize" button the page is a little bit messed up (the images are shift on the right at least on IE9), I suppose this is due to the advanced description that includes images.

Hope this helps.]]> Magic 2011-08-27T15:46:07-00:00 http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=36765&th=6157#msg_36765 a customer (probably not a web savvy like us) not knowing how to finish his order :


User did not know how to checkout

So why try to invent the wheel all over again? the ordering flow should be the same as on all other major e-commerce websites.

Add to cart --> (new page or a in-page popup) -->Continue shopping or order now? - simple, effective..





]]> dizingof 2011-10-17T09:14:06-00:00