I understand the need for having test printed every one of your own designs prior to selling. I'm just curious what happens when someone tries to order a part that cannot be made. Do they get a message saying the part they've ordered has been canceled? Thank you.
That is what generally happens. If you order it yourself, you have the option to tick the box 'Print it Anyway', meaning they'll ship it to you whatever comes out of the printer, be it the model you intended or the failed print if they could not have done it properly because of design faults. If someone else orders something similar from you, and the part is faulty, they will notify you of that and remove it from sale. You will have one week to update such model or else the order will be cancelled and the customer refunded. Although that also happens with parts that are supposed to be within Shapeways' own design parameters nowadays, and they still get rejected for no good reason (at least that is my experience in the last few months, and I've been doing this for 5 years). Hope this will be of help, CH