Cast Metals Price Restructuring

I just did some calculations for my designs.

• My more compact designs are about 8-20% cheaper, depending on the metal and scale.
• My more delicate designs are about 5-10% more expensive.
• One large, delicate pair of earrings is about 25% more expensive - no more savings by combining two mirrored pieces.

So, I have mixed feelings about this... It's good news for cuddly creature jewelry, but bad news for jewelry with a light, airy feel. Too bad that I'm more drawn towards the latter - and even if they balance each other out, I won't benefit much from the new pricing model.

On the other hand, I do understand that the new approach is more realistic with regards to the labor cost.

Thankfully, I was never planning to get rich this way. But it would still be nice to recover some of the costs for this rather expensive hobby.

Oh well - maybe I'll go and think up some compact, chubby beasties to hang from my ears instead...

At this time we do have a cap of 2 parts per file, we will not scrutinize these parts to ensure that they are a pair. However, allowing a large number of parts per file will affect costs, so we have to keep the cap at 2. If anything changes, you will be updated. As far as sprueing items together, this is allowed but it will be checked for castability. Very often sprued items are very difficult to cast due to metal flow. If the structure is castable, the design will be accepted into production.

I understand the part cap I was just hoping the cap would be a little higher, but if you are relaxing the rules to allow spruing components then that's probably even better, thanks!

Mark

So my costs will double due to support material? Come on that just sounds silly. I mean the printer doesn't care if it is printing support material or not, I bet the costs of that are no where near what the increase reflects. What is it a little more wax? I can see an increase of something but the surface area penalty is WAY out of proportion of the cost of some extra wax supports. I know the system just uses a dumb algorithm and doesn't know the difference between an easy and complex piece to make so maybe there should be an adjustment at the manual review phase. If the piece looks like it is an easy cast with little labor then a cost adjustment credit would be made. I know on the few pieces I made in raw metal the support material labor would be minimal.

Come on... this is it! No more complaints? That is why shapeways can do what they want? Are we the only few once that are effected by this? It gives me confidence that we are unique and scares me that we are alone...

And if we order a part today while the price is still more reasonable, receive it defective in a few weeks we will get a refund. The problem is when we re-order the same piece we will need to pay maybe double! I had that happen, I ordered something during a promotion and it was bad. They did refund me but then told me if i re-order I will need to pay full price as the promotion has ended! I had to fight about that and finally they did allow me to re-order at the promotion price as the problem was not my fault but who knows what will happen now with the cast metal?

Something tells me we can bitch all we want, they are doing this and that is that. The higher ups sat in meetings and poured through all of their pie charts etc and this is what came out. The only way this will change is if they see sales drop off and effect the bottom line. I doubt that will happen though as they already did all of that research. I guess the majority just make tiny parts, majority rules and all that i guess.

In the case of FUD/FXD (being repriced now too), they had multiple typos... or had to adjust things. First table was showing 0.50 & 0.55 for support formula and 0.06 & 0.16 with power 1.45 for space, now it shows 0.38 & 0.50 for support and 0.09 & 0.20 with power 1.25 for space. Which would lead to thinking things are unclear so far.

Nothing unclear about it. If you read through the comments on that thread you'll see they had another look at the pricing after feedback and adjusted the numbers. In other words they do listen to feedback and take it on board where they can,

Mark

Unclear as unsettled (or rushed). They had the meetings, but are going to need some more.

And designers that change things just now can be going for a rough ride later.

There would had been a bit more clarity if tools were working at announcement day (price change boxes, 3D previews, etc).

Any chance that the per part cost for be applied once for interlocking metal earrings or cufflinks? Otherwise, the base price for interlocking polished silver earrings starts at $70 and that's without volume or surface area calculations.

I recommend if an item comes to you in lower quality than standard to then request a reprint. This way you will not need to pay for the item if the price is going up. If you are having an issue receiving a reprint in this situation, feel free to reach out to me directly and I would be happy to help resolve this.

Is this piece cast and finished by Shapeways? If so, what metal is that? I have a couple pendant designs that have fine details (Looks like you're using zbrush too?) that I'd like to have cast before the prices go up but am concerned the detail is going to get polished away so was going to send them off to a casting house instead.

This looks like brass or bronze with some type of patina or antique finish done after the fact. If the details meet guidelines, they should not be polished away. If you experience this with one of your pieces, please reach out directly to service@shapeways.com and they should be able to help you resolve this.

So, having made myself a spreadsheet looks like I am most definitely on the luckier end of this price change.
For me financially this is a positive change, some pieces will be about 18% cheaper, some as much as 47% cheaper.

Hopefully this means I can bring my own retail prices down while also gaining a little margin myself.
The biggest difference is one of my cat paw print designs that would normally cost $52.00 now projected as costing $27.50! Granted I am still at the mercy of exchange rates (being from the UK), but this is one hell of a difference.

I feel sorry for those that are being penalised by these changes, I know some of you are projecting a 200% increase in price which is just untenable! Could shapeways have been so wrong in their pricing before? Were some of us apparently paying far too much and others paying far too little? Or are these new calculations wrong themselves and will things change again in a few months?

As happy as I am with the difference to my business, I think 10 days warning is a horrible thing to do those having the sharp increases in the community, and a longer lead should have been given.

Is this still happening today?
Will emails be sent out on launch etc?

This is still on for today. You will recieve an email, a modal will pop up when you are logged in, and you may download your price comparison sheet on site.

Thanks Virginia

Hi Virginia,

I haven't received the email and don't seem to be able to access the new pricing or comparison spreadsheet. Can it please be resent?

Thanks,

Deb

I haven't got anything either