New price structure

... believe a customer would buy from a site like this ?

I don't.

https://www.shapeways.com/model/315101/now_that_they_screwed_ the_rest_out_of_it.html

Of course the old pricing structure did! Unless UPS were giving Shapeways free postage?

The reason for the minimum order was so that Shapeways covered their costs of postage, this implies that a percentage of that $25 was kept aside to cover postage costs.

For example, a $25 order may break down as such:

$6 Postage

$7 Model production costs

$5 Handling

$7 Profit

My question is now we pay postage seperately we should see that $6 removed from our order cost by making the materials or handling fee slightly cheaper, right?

Nope, I wouldn't. Very disturbing.

If I were head of programming for the website I would be looking for another job right now... and leaving Shapeways off my resume!

Glenn

@B1lancer The problem is that perhaps for this $25 order the profit for Shapeways was negative.
Small orders (nothing smaller than $25 at that time, right?) were subsidized by big orders.
A business were small orders are subsidized by big orders can only survive if you give incentives for big orders (like the same shipping fee whatever the number of ordered items is, or same handling fees whatever the size of the item is).

Ordinary mail parcel are not tracked, which is probably why there are sampled for customs. So if your parcel goes astray it will be lost for good.
It would not necessarily be much cheaper either, a 1Kg parcel from the UK to Brazil would cost either £17 or £26 ($25.50 or $39) depending on the service. It's likely Shapeways could get a good discount on these prices but there would still be no guarantees for delivery.

wow those screen shots are ridiculous.

shapeways is trying to do a lot of new stuff. there are bound to be problems. i still think simplifying things rather than complicating things should be the answer.

it's impossible to do everything at once, as evidenced by the problems with warnings and programming bugs. look at ponoko- they're not trying to fill retail orders. they're filling wholesale orders to designer/vendors who re-package. they have a marketplace, but it's not direct-to-consumer.

does anyone here make significant money selling their designs directly through shapeways? if yes, please say so. i really want to know.

That's not accurate either. Ordinary mail can be tracked and insured.
Even for USPS First Class Mail International, which is cheaper and officially not trackable, I can track it when it gets into brazilian territory if the sender gives me the Customs Form number, which he had to fill to be able to send it anyway.
My models are all small and weight just a few grams. I don't think any of my orders ever reached 1kg. So, I would expect the rates to be much smaller. I had bought several items from UK internet stores and ebay.co.uk over the years, and I don't recall paying more than 7 or 8 pounds for shipping (with insurance).

Luis

If that was the issue then doing as I suggested earlier and increasing the free shipping price cap to say $40 would be an incentive for people to maker larger orders instead instead of several small orders.

I know a little about running a business and the only reason I'd have more expensive products subsidising cheaper products would be if the cheaper products could generate more expensive product orders than plain advertising and at the same time be cheaper than just plain advertising.

Something has fundamentally changed at Shapeways and it isn't for the better.

The problem with the free shipping is I could make a 1cm cube in wsf costs $3.00 at old pricing $2.90 now. And put $23 markup then shipping would be free for my customers.

Whilst that is true, it is simple enough to put some restrictions in place to prevent that happening.

For example, markups are only paid on orders where the actual model prices are >$25

That would be fair enough, Shapeways cover their costs and Shop owners are encouraged to make bigger models/sell greater numbers of smaller products in a single order.

So 1 model that costs $15 to produce with a $15 Markup you'd receive nothing. But selling 2 models that cost $15 each with a markup of $15 each you'd get paid your $30, Shapeways would have their covered their costs and would have 2 models in a single order rather than two seperate orders with just 1 model in.


Regards,

Jack

@B1B - I can't say I like that idea, because any item with such a low production cost but a $15 markup would undoubtedly be a co-creator model. Several of my co-creators are under $25 even with the markup. In your example that means I would have to do the work of modifying and uploading the model, but I wouldn't get paid unless they order two copies? That seems really arbitrary and I'm not sure who benefits from that. The current pricing structure reflects the actual costs involved, and I don't think it's that big of a deal that it is more complicated, since the software is telling you your price, right in front of you.

That wold not be fair at all. Most of my models are under 3cc. I have no control of how many my customers want to buy. If it is a one o cutom order $20+ markup may be justified for my time.

Hey Jack,

While your scenario could turn out to be true, that's also notably more complicated than our present structure. Trying to have one behavior offset the other just didn't work very well last time.

We chose simply to reveal the costs we were incurring more accurately, and allow people to make their own choices about what they buy.

@mctrivia Yes, exactly.

Yes, it was a bit of an off the cuff idea. What I am trying to understand and still don't understand is why the material cost and handling cost is the same whilst the postage is more, how can the material and handling costs be the same when they used to include shipping?

Surely the old cost of shipping should be deducted from the new material and handling costs now shipping is seperate?

Regards,

Jack

Maybe they did, Jack. Maybe their pricing structure was so out of whack that this now evens it out... however, I must admit I had those exact thoughts myself.

Glenn

I am thinking along these lines, keep in mind this is just a couple of minutes thought so could be flawed and is a best case scenario

The idea is that you'd encourage your customers to buy more than one model or one bigger model, so you'd bundle two or three rings, dice, etc, this way your customer is buying 3 items or 1 bigger item to be shipped in one package rather than 3 seperate packages over time.

The benefit to you is that you'll be selling bigger (or a greater quantity of) models.

Not many people are going to pay $10+$15 Markup for a model and then $20 shipping (total $45), more people would buy bigger (or greater quantity of) models for $25+$20 Markup with free shipping.

You'll generate a $20 (bigger) markup, Shapeways get less packages to ship, bigger, easier models to clean, generate more profit and the customer pays exactly the same.

Regards,

Jack

Who wants a die that is 20cc? Bigger is not always Better. The new price structure is fair. And they can always reduce costs in the future if they find it is overpriced.

the toughest part of this price issue right now is the suddenness and the significance for my best-selling items. a model that previously cost me 5.00 in steel now costs 10.00. that's a 100% increase, not including shipping. i could handle an increase of a dollar or two. but 100%?

i realize that the 5.00 was probably losing you money. but the 10.00 means i can't make them at all, so is that better? if i upload two at a time (same work for you as a pair of earrings, right?), it averages to 7. i can handle 7.

isn't there a way to make it work for everyone? aren't there enough of us who are willing to join a club to become prime members to receive preferential treatment and/or discounts, the income from which could help offset these issues until you figure it out?

i realize that you are trying to be transparent, but clearly you cannot achieve complete transparency. every order has to contribute to paying the salaries of every person who works at shapeways, whether they work on a specific order or not. the money to pay the people who are responding to all these messages has to come out of our orders, too. transparency is a fiction. what's important is that you come up with a system that works.

pete's not wrong, these prices are not necessarily too high for custom-made items. but that's easy for me to understand, and much harder for my customer to understand when my items double in price. am i supposed to eat the difference? how can i ever build a business if my prices might double in the course of a week?

i will admit to having "abused" the system in the past. i thought nothing of it-- especially with regard to steel since it didn't affect the price. i question why you wouldn't crack down on abuse of the system-- or at least ask us not to abuse it-- BEFORE raising prices.

I have had the opportunity to visit the Eindhoven office tour last Friday.
Very cool to meet many Shapies again, but we also got an in depth view of the whole customer service and production chain.

While the local production is limited to Strong & Flexible, the amount of people and work involved going from ordering to planning to production, polishing/cleaning, quality control, packaging and shipping is pretty insane.

Not to forget the love and care these people show during all of this, they are a happy, but very hardworking bunch, some people work sixty hours (or more) a week to keep everyone as happy as possible.

Actually I'm surprised, handling costs are not even higher..

I personally am happy with the new more transparent pricing.
The previously hidden and shared cost of handling and shipping never seems to make much sense.

And since some materials did show lower prices to compensate for the external new shipping and handling costs. I assume that if a material did drop in price, previously you got it under production cost..