Pricing Changes

I see a couple of spare parts I printed out in september for €17 will now cost me €59 on an identical order. How is that remotely alright?

In my opinion you are expensive on most items already. Using your products I save my customers money over me making them from scratch. If you increase your prices too much I will be forced to make my own parts anyway. Have you considered that you run your business in an area that has a very high overhead. Why not relocate to an area where you can cut cost over your operation. Machines don't care where they are. They will still make your quality products without the high overhead you are experiencing now. Higher prices might force me away from Shapeways.

Yep - i have buyed an anycubic photon for my next projects.
Also i'm planning to close down my shop on shapeways - its not the right way how shapeways deal with customers and shop owners.
- Intransparent pricing stucture,
- always price model changes mostly much higher as the announcement say.
- Already successfully printed models becomes suddenly unprintable
....

Look I'm simply a customer who likes and enjoys the 3 D printing but I have to say, the every increasing pricing is making me pause. . To the Europeans who think it doesn't matter to us, nothing could be further from the truth. . When something starts to reach for the stars price wise it becomes difficult to justify the expense.

I've noticed vendors I enjoy using are already being forced to jack up prices , some closing in on beyond reasonable reach . I understand the ebb and flow of business but this seems to be a great way to know out vendors and consumers .

So, a couple of days ago i posted that a cast metal order, (bought on 23rd October) of new non grandfathered items, it was estimated to be finished around November 20th under the new time frames. I didn't pay the 30% fee to get it down to the old cast metal creation times, as that would have been an extra £40 or so!
Guess what I just got? Yup...shipping notice. Guess it's good I didn't pay the extra 30% isn't it.
Ordered 23rd October
Estimated 20th November
Shipped 5th November

Yes, I made the same "test" (orders not for test, I really need the stuff ) with the following result, all ordered items are Versatile Plastic:

Placed on: Oct 26th 2018 with priority: Shipped Oct 29th 2018:
3 days only - over the weekend! - is great (how fast is "rush"? Printed before ordered ?

Placed on: Oct 26th 2018 with priority: Shipped Nov 4th 2018:
Seems that one model had a problem, anyhow still one or two days before estimated.

Placed on: Oct 29th 2018 "ecco": Shipped Nov 4th 2018
One week, like "in the old days". Estimated was Nov 19th 2018...

This makes sw great again...

So may "ecco" production can take 3 weeks, may you can have luck - but if you want to get sure you have to pay 30% more?!


Bests
Jens

I'd recommend seeing if you can find any local people to print the stuff for you depending on the material you need. There's a lot of really fantastic artists with both FDM and DLP/SLA machines that can match/exceed the Shapeways prices & they're actually transparent about what they're doing.

I've totally had something similar happen in the past with a client who wanted something printed through Shapeways. Such a dumb situation.

I gave up on the Shapeways marketplace a LONG time ago because, as you said, the search algorythem is really bad (which is why I sell remotely on Etsy because people actually find my stuff there). I sell mostly asexual pride rings which is super niche and if you type in 'asexual pride ring' or some variation there upon I just get a lot of really random unrelated rings that show up... it's great...

I literally bought all my 3d printers (photon included) because shapeways was irritating me with their prices/etc and have, in about 5 months, made the same amount off those printers as i did off shapeways sales all year. it's nuts. in the coming weeks/months, i'm going to be pushing even harder to remove as many shapeways-produced products from my shop as possible because a) I don't like jacking up the prices super high and b) it's really not professional to cancel an etsy order because the cost of my models increased overnight with no warning and i'd then be losing money on the sale...

I seriously hope Shapeways are eye balling this thread and taking notes.

As my first Photon print was mind blowing but the fumes were bad I brought a small extraction fan and stuff for the Photon today. Wall drilling starts soon.

Looking forward to charging literally half price or less for certain items. Things that will fit in the bed anyway.

Again, I don't want to replace Shapeways but rather suppliment it. As pricing has gone to the heavens for some things with no stable pricings being certain I felt need to buy this printer otherwise things are possibly going to die and I want them to grow. Just bone obvious stuff.

Plus if I can get the loco shells printing well then it could save me a LOT in the long run in the cost of purchasing my own models.

EDIT: Would just like to add, despite the recent changes I want Shapeways to succeed. I'm not angry per sey, just a bit worried and saddened by how things seem to be going. It does seem though that it is out of our (designers) hands.

Great job ShapeWays.

Customers are fleeing, stores are closing. Soon enough you will have solved all your problems.
No of fewer customers mean you need less machines resulting in less overhead. Think about it!
If you sell off all equipment there will be absolutely no cost involved whatsoever!! Soon enough you can take down the entire website and save a bit more.
The only thing left is a bunch of people you keep around to read the forum to keep up on issues you now can ignore completely.

You are still not getting it. Are you?

"New York, NY – April 19, 2018 – Shapeways – the leading platform redefining product creation through services to ‘design, make and sell’ using 3D printing technologies – today announced $30M Series E led by Lux Capital. Other participants in this round include Union Square Ventures, INKEF Capital and Andreessen Horowitz all recommitting as earlier investors."

"Hewlett Packard Ventures and Presidio Ventures, the investment arm of the Tokyo-based Sumitomo Corporation, also participated in the round, as well as current investors Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Index Ventures, and Lux Capital" (From 2015 press release)

Perhaps we should start an email campaign to their investors to start looking into the latest debacles Shapeways has put out in the last 2 months. obviously Shapeways is aware of the user dissatisfaction, though their overall silence seems to show their lack of concern. I wonder if their investors are keeping an eye on what is transpiring and what their feeling are on how Shapeways is spending their money.

Have to say that initially the pricing changes looked like I would need to adjust my sights and now pursue a couple of different projects. Unfortunately now I have gone back to re-check a number of models to see what the subsequent changes have meant and unfortunately it is terminal. My range simply won't sell and it is just not viable any longer - quite how we've reached this stage is amazing and disappointing.

Anyone in Shapeways Towers care to chime in??

I think theyre all too busy cleaning up their resumes and packing up their desks.

ur funy, anyone of the staff is packing up there desk?

Upper level management can answer but won't.
I don't think anyone is worried about you not updating the resume. It might be a good idea to actually do it.
SW is sinking. SW clearly hit the iceberg but the Captain says not to worry.

For some reason SW has crappified the business. If you don't care then there is nothing anyone can and will do.
You abandon the customers..... and the customers will abandon you.

Maybe so.....

A few of the above few responses since my last post made me chuckle.

Anyway, I hope desks are not being packed away as I just ordered a couple of items, although waiting until the 27th for them to be posted isn't brilliant, but not a deal breaker.

That's where I'm at. I was already pushing the limits of what would sell/remain affordable while trying to make a small percentage for myself. However, to keep my products in range SW takes all the profit for my models and I get little to nothing. There is no mutual benefit to that. We're not here to only make Shapeways money. It has to be win-win else those of us doing the hard part (designing the models) take our IP and find another way.

SW, we're not just customers. We're creators of the content that keeps those printers humming. Without that content all those expensive printers go idle. Listen to the people that have given advance notice that they're closing shop on 1/1. Listen to the people who are talking about that 500 dollar printer in their garage that prints better than SW detailed plastic. We want Shapeways to be around! But you can't do it without us. You need to find a better way to solve your problem. This secret algorithm isn't it. Your price hikes aren't it. 3D printing is supposed to get more affordable, not less, over time. You're doing something wrong. Fix it, please.

Don't read this comment, read the one above....again.

Perfectly described. Couldn't improve upon it if I tried.