Do You Order A Print Of Each Model In Your Shop?

Hey!
I am curious if other sellers actually order one of each model in their shop. So far I have, mainly because I have made them for my own use primarily.

I have been practicing modeling a lot though and have a ton of models I'd like to upload for sale. They are all pretty basic and I feel like I have a pretty good feel for what they will turn out like.

I would ideally save my money for prototyping the larger and more complex models I am working on! Any opinions on this??

Disclaimer: I only do this as a hobby, not as a source of income. My perspective is more of that of a hobbyist and a customer than that of a seller.

Some sellers do, others don't.

The only reason that I can think of not to is obviously the cost. Some sellers have so many items in their store that buying one of each (and possibly in each material) would be incredibly expensive.

The pros are a lot more significant in my opinion:

• Buying your own model takes it out of "First to Try". Until someone purchases your model in a specific material, it will be labeled as "First to Try". This tells the customer that they are essentially testing your product for you. Even though your model passes all of the automated checks with flying colors, it can possibly fail a manual one. For many, this can mean a lost customer. Imagine buying someone else's product, waiting several weeks only to hear that Shapeways is not capable of making it. Yes, you get your money back, but you've wasted a lot of time (opportunity cost), and you certainly wouldn't be happy about the experience. You might even receive it, but it's in the wrong dimensions or just doesn't function as intended.
• You can add photos of the final product as received from Shapeways. The renders and 3D preview (if enabled) can give the customer a pretty good idea, but they can never beat a good set of photos. Many people are also very hesitant to order anything without a photo (not just talking about Shapeways here). Photos can also help convey scale by placing them next to objects of fixed size (such as a coin or one of those magical bananas).

Here's the way I look at it:

• You designed it, so you must like it. Why wouldn't you buy it?
• Why should a customer buy something that you aren't willing to buy yourself?
• Is it too expensive for you? Then is it too expensive for the customer?
• Would you buy from a catalog that admits that they haven't even tried or tested their product?

To summarize, buying your own products and uploading photos gives your customer more confidence that they won't be disappointed by their purchase.

Extra advice:
Don't have enough money to buy one of each item in your store? Why not buy your items one at a time, take photos, then sell them online when done. This way, you can recover most, if not all, of your expense and possibly even make a profit.

I personally still have every one of my printed designs sitting on a shelf on display, excluding the ones given away as gifts. But as stated above, I create these designs for myself, not specifically as a product.

Good
Good points!! I don't have much of a profit margin on these models so yeah, I was thinking it would save me some money and fill up my shop quicker while I work on new things.. The thought of a model not passing manual inspection would be awful though. I would feel terrible if that happened! Thanks for the advice!!!

A major problem is that taking a model out of "first to try" does not guarantee it will always print from then on...
And depending on the subject of your work, it may make sense to create a full series of "related" models with small modifications where you may not want to spend money and shelf space once you are reasonably certain that the base features survive printing.

Concur with @mkroeker.

It also depends on what you intend to confirm with the test. For example, do you just want to know if Shapeways can print it? Or perhaps, you are reasonably certain the design can be printed but you might want to know how it looks if printed in different materials or oriented different ways in the printer.

If you just want to know if it can be printed, be advised that sometimes, as @mkroeker said, even models that have been successfully printed several times get canceled when ordered. IMHO, this tends to make test prints to determine printability rather meaningless for that purpose.

At some point, you are likely to gain a very good idea of what can be printed and what will get rejected and you can design to that without having to rely on a test print to determine printability. The autocheck feature, while certainly not perfect, has been a pretty good indicator for my designs.

It should also be noted that the 3D print engineer can choose the orientation of the model when printed. This means that the model may be printed differently each time it gets printed. A test print only confirms that the product could be printed the one way the print engineer selected, unless you, the designer forced the orientation, which you can do for FUD/FXD.

A question that comes up sometimes with commissions is, who pays for the test print? Most designs in my shop are requested by a specific modeler, they're not for me. So if the requester asks for a test print, I ask the requester to pay for it. If the requester is unwilling to pay for the test print, then I will ensure the design passes the autochecks then offer it to the customer. Nearly always, the customer gets a successful print the first time, no problems. I think it is unreasonable for the requester of one design just for him or her to expect the designer to pay for a test print for a product no one else is likely to buy.

And material matters, too. Is the product going to printed in a very expensive precious metal like gold? The answer to the question may or may not be different.

Just my 2 cents.

That's kind of what I was thinking originally. A lot of them are variations on models that I have printed previously. I have had a model that was printed many times sucessfully bumped back to first to try so I'm not really to concerned about that part of it!

Thanks for your advice!!

L
Lots of good advice! Thank you!!

I am very confident that my designs are printable. I have noticed that the manual checks aren't always consisitent and printing a model successfully multiple times doesn't mean it won't end up first to try again!

I do worry about disappointing a customer though but, I suppose that is just the nature of using this service!

Definitely a good point on first-to-try. Though I have yet to experience it myself, I have read a lot on these forums about models being rejected after many successful prior prints. I will not pretend to know the process involved or how the decisions are made, but it certainly does happen.

We'll see how the rejection process is improved when "3d Print On Hold" is finalized (it is currently in beta and only applies to orders of your own items). Hopefully it will smooth out the process from the customer's perspective.

Thanks for mentioning that. "3D print on hold" would certainly look a lot more professional than a rejection. I hope they implement it for customer orders too!

Hi,

We print all our designs before they go on sale. We do this to show how the painted product will look like, and to check the design of course. We sell single item kits and multi item kits (sets) that are composed of more individueal items. Usually we order the sets only. This has to do with the costs. As the single item kits contain geometries that were already printed successfully in the set, we feel confident that these models can be printed too.

Unfortunately SW does not understand this, and sometimes rejects items that were already printed before (in a different kit). Besides, we have learned that most rejections are falsely based on misinterpretations of details (always regarded thin walls here). Also once a product was test printed in FXD, it can be rejected in FUD. This should be not possible (same product group with same guidelines), but this happens quite often unfortunatily.

Many of my models are grouped from parts I've test-printed in a larger batch, then split up afterwards. That way I order one big print made up of several different models sprued together to reduce cost, and if I'm happy then I break the models back up into individual items and offer them for sale. Sure, I lose the "first to try" battle, but that doesn't seem to matter.

And the usual disclaimer applies - I do this to feed my own model-making hobby, so I'm only releasing my designs for sale as a favour to other model-builders. Turn-over pays for all my test prints, but I'd never make enough to cover the hours of CAD-work I invest!