Road To Major Fud Improvements Starts With Repricing

Hello,

It took us almost a day, but we have now restructured our final retail prices.
Yesterday we had to change the prices quickly (almost 1000 changes, and now 1295 changes).

Overall the prices of our FUD/FXD products could be lowered with 8% which is nice.

As mentioned above the smaller products benefit form the new pricing structuring. The claim however that larger scale products became cheaper is not the case. Luckily we do not sell H0 kits, but given the pricing structures it appears that H0-products (especially larger models like trains or trucks) will become even more expensive.

It is a pity that multiple part models are becoming more expensive. Especially if you want to make good paintable cars, a single piece design does not work. Sprueing parts together is often not a good solution.

Again we would like to see that SW is supporting shop owners that try to get the best quality (in both design and presentation) instead of promoting to cut costs without looking into printing quality.
Also the implementation of the repricing is again a great example of wrong communication and keeping your designers in the dark, which is (given previous experiences with SW) an unforgivable move. The next time we would like to be consulted in advance.

The way you have to restructure your shop costs way too much time. You can think: who cares. Well, all-in-all we've lost two weeks of development due to the price changes. So basically 2/52 less novelties this years, which more or less equals 2/52th less sales SW!
And now we've noticed that the image order on our shop has changed completely! Again extra work.

SW: you need to get a proper user interface a.s.a.p.


Regards,
Maurice & Joris

Damage report:
half went down (between 0-45%) and half went up (between 0-93%) in price
the latter being the multi-part ones

SW is not a trustworthy business partner doing changes like this...

If you think of SW as a business partner then you have bigger problems. Of course they aren't a business partner, they provide a service and you choose to use it. They have no vested interest in your models or shop, they simply charge for a 3D printing service. We as designers have chosen to use their service, and as with any other service we should expect price changes to be usually in the favour of the supplier. In this instance they have at least taken the time to explain the changes and adapt them after some feedback. They were under no obligation to do either, and many other suppliers would simply have changed their prices without any consultation or warning at all.

Mark

Keep in mind that shapeways is not Peter's friendly backyard workshop anymore (and has not been for at least five or six years), but a multinational brought to you by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures and Hewlett Packard.

@ETS35, I am stunned they stood that model up on its side like that! It does seem daft. As for the machine space though, I can see their point - the printer has to sweep back & forth for every layer whether or not it is squirting FXD. If their biggest cost component is the electricity (instead of the plastic) then that time is money, and somebody's got to pay for it. That's why I thought you could lay those cylinders down in Set 2A, just to lower the machine-space height component which is 1.45X the cost of footprint, and applies even in open air.

Gotta say, seeing how this is being calculated I'm certainly going to change my design philosophy in future! Low is cheap, and cheap is good...

I've always sprued my parts together so they are one part to save your poor technicians all that hard work and now I've seen all of those prints at least double in price.

In the interest of fairness which specific machines do Shapeways use for FUD and FXD please? Anyone know of any other 3D printing firms that use the same machines as they will be getting most of my business. I've had a good few prints from Imaterialise in the past and looks like they'll be getting a lot more of my clients business.

Also it would be nice if you didn't treat us like idiots and pass this off as something better for us customers.

If that was the case then fairest option would be to offer a choice between both pricing structures!

That would be a bit daft though as everyone would choose the cheapest option which would drive shapeways out of business. The fairest option is what they have done: change the pricing structure so it better matches the actual cost of printing a given part. This way we all pay for printing our own models, rather than those who print single small items subsidizing those who print bigger multi part models.

Mark

Actually, I think that is part of the problem. Shapeways has the scale, name, and international presence to behave like a big multinational, but in many ways they're still behaving like Peter's Friendly Backyard Workshop. As an example -- seriously, no one knew exactly which day the changeover would happen until this week?!

If the rollout of this change were more enterprise-like:

• The dates would not be "mushy" (though they might occasionally slip out)
• The time frames would have been much longer to allow shop owners to compensate and prepare.
• The tools to compare the old and new pricing would have been available on the day of announcement, for all shop owners and all products. (Whether it's done through a "faux new material" or some other method.)
• Shop owners could have adjusted models, set prices, and changed markups under the new pricing long before the switchover day, rather than scrambling after it has already gone "live".

I'm fine with Shapeways occasionally adjusting their prices to match their costs. It's just the way this change was rolled out that could have been much improved. Shapeways... please become more like a big multinational and less like a startup who is still figuring things out as they go. The furor over the WSF repricing a couple years ago should have provided plenty of lessons on how to (and how not to) roll out a price change.

My model

https://www.shapeways.com/model/upload-and-buy/1902692

went from $103 to $767!

This this not allow for innovative uses of 3D printing possible;
Metallic Plastic has also increased greatly!

Hey all,

We see the reports of changes happening to markup and product availability and are actively looking into these issues. We have found the source of the issue at this point, and are working on identifying how we can retroactively fix it.

Please stay tuned and thank you for your patience!

I have spent 6 months to get this model printable, I have customers who want to reorder these items, buy 10 new same items, but with this new prices that is impossible mission for them!

http://shpws.me/OqSx
went from $264 to $456

http://shpws.me/Oddc
went from $249 to $596

http://shpws.me/OgBG
went from $216 to $366

http://shpws.me/OorP
went from $115 to $197

http://shpws.me/OyYH
went from $36.98 to $220 -------- 650% price up

I understand increased price for 10% or 15% but for 100% or 200% that is unacceptable for me and customers too

diStefan> I guess the models could be much cheaper when split into parts.

Funny thing is, that SW pricing algorithm is forcing us, modellers, to go to exactly the same style of design, as plastic model kits have.
They are also "spruing" and they also make models as flat as possible and they also cut shapes in halves to get the quality surface.

They have different reasons to do so - flow of plastic in injection, draft angles and tapering, time to open and close the mould ... but the outcome is more or less the same what SW is asking us to do to keep reasonable pricing.

The only difference is that for them the surface are and material volume is not so important (as plastic is cheap and size of form is not so important when it still fits into the machine).

Dear Stefan,

You are not the only one. As previously mentioned HERE we experienced similar problems with many products raised up to almost 500% on price. For example, few ttems cost $150 before, now cost approx $1250. I guess that makes us one of the most affected shops around. I am not much worried about it, since there are plenty of other factories that can provide Shapeways-alike printing services with much lower prices. Everybody will find his/her own way to deal with the new pricing policy and sooner or later everything will get into an order. We managed to sell dozens of scale models monthly and earn a good income for Shapeways and our team ofcourse - now we need to setup a new basis, but its OK, we'll find a way. What is really frustrating, is that few trolls (who cannot exceed $100 sales monthly) are happy about our loss and hurried to write bitter comments. Obviously, they thought that our bad luck would possibly mean success for them. No need to say more.

Regards,
Anyuta 3D

Yeah, this has been happening to me -- I revised all my FUD/FXD markups yesterday (uploaded CSV), and everything looked great; today checking my shop I find there are a few random wild pricing errors that weren't there yesterday.

Possibly a coincindence, but some of the price errors are on models that have successfully printed many times in FUD/FXD, but were rejected when I tried to print them in BHDA (when that material first was introduced)...

It's true, but really, the awful quality of the support side of the model means that I've have been thinking in these terms for a while now anyway. The problem has been that even if you split models into halves etc, there is no guarantee that Shapeways will print it the way you intended (detail side up)! That is why we need orientation control so so badly. See examples earlier in this thread of models carefully sprued and and laid out -- only to be printed on their side!

I know orientation control is coming, but until then everything for me is on hold...

Hey Guys!!!

I'm talking of much serious problems here we have

I have made a lot models and placed in to my shop this year, many of them are from signed contracts I've made for this year and what now! how to explain customers this guys wants much more money today then yesterday otherwise I still stay on the same markup! so sad

Yes, but those pictures were printscreens from the Check Tool.

And MitchellJetten (Shapeways employee) clearly said, that it is the orientation, from which _price is calculated_ NOT the orientation which is actually printed.

Of course it means you have no certainty about the orientation, but doesn't mean, that the orientation is so wrong, just because "Skynet said so".

My concern is that when the orientation tool will come out, the price will not be calculated for the cheapest orientation but for the real - actually printed - one.
And we will be repricing models once more in few weeks - and nearly all of them will get more expensive, because now they are the cheapest possible (with given price formula).
Happy work with Excel everyone!

Dear Stefan,

Same situation here. Two weeks ago, we had a £12000 GBP worth deal with one of the biggest and most famous military museums in Europe in order to build for them some high detailed miniatures, they already sent payment in advance and now we find ourselves into a very unpleasant situation to realize that budget calculated before Shapeways new pricing, is completely unreal considering new FUD prices. Thanks a lot Shapeways! You just blew up a £12000 GBP worth deal - or to be more accurate, you blew up the opportunity to get some serious income, while we'll have to attend to another 3D printing service to produce the model kits. Same time, some users are extremely happy because their $6 worth item, now cost $5.9. Great! Just great!

Regards,
Anyuta 3D

The relationship between SW and the shop owners is a symbiotic one -- we both benefit and we would both suffer (or sink entirely) without each other. I want to make sure that SW stays solvent and provides this excellent opportunity for those of us who can't afford millions of dollars in printing equipment, so I fully support whatever changes are necessary to ensure SW is around for a long time to come.

But, Shapeways, you need to do a post-mortem on the handling of this rollout, as should have been done after the WSF brouhaha, to ensure it is handled better next time. The viz tools should have been ready to go before you even made the announcement, and more lead time given to designers to fix problematic designs. Unless you're bleeding cash and are in danger of financial collapse, what was the emergency that meant you could not give us more lead time? Or have the tools ready to deploy that would have ensured that we were able to make necessary redesign efforts prior to the changes impacting our shops and customers? It's something to think about for the future.

I assume you are talking about me here.

I am not a troll, and I don't mean you any harm.
I am in no way happy about your loss, but I am annoyed by how you're acting like Shapeways owe you something and should continue subsidising your 60+ part files with the revenue from other people with more sensible designs.

I feel like there was a lot of goodwill to even allow such parts in the first place, and I'm sure that the new pricing model is now fairer to everyone.
"Fair" doesn't necessarily mean "cheap".

Two last things:

Just because someone doesn't have a public shop on here doesn't mean their business doesn't depend on Shapeways.

Let me quote the PM you sent me:

(Edit: Removed PM quote)

As I said. I genuinely hope that things work out for you and your shop.