Spring & Wonder Launch

Discussion in 'Official Announcements' started by gregorykress, Jun 20, 2018.

  1. gregorykress
    gregorykress Shapeways Employee CEO
    Dear Shapeways Community,

    Today we launched Spring & Wonder. It’s a brand, storefront, and jewelry collection that we built in 2 months. We are proud of the collection and hope you love the jewelry. But Shapeways didn’t do this to become a jewelry store, we did it for you.

    Spring & Wonder shows what’s possible. It demonstrates what our platform can do-- and the vision for services we are developing. We published a blueprint to showcase the future of commerce with the step-by-step creation of Spring & Wonder. It’s a guide to design, make and sell products manufactured via 3D printing. You can download it here.

    Because we are doing something pretty foreign to most people, we thought it would be helpful to show not just tell. With Spring & Wonder, you can use the customizer technology we developed to embed in a Shopify site. You can order seamlessly from our factory. You’ll receive custom packaging and fully assembled jewelry. You’ll see the high quality of 3D printing at market prices.

    I’m sure the first question is, “Is it available for me now?” Many of you have asked us for these services and that was why we built them. Many of the services are currently in beta testing with 2-3 customers. Custom packaging, for example, is not ready for a wider audience yet. However, others we are actively scaling, like upgrading our API to make a more sophisticated integration with our logistics platform. All of these services are now available through our in-house development team, yet not all of them for the full community yet! We outline how to get more information in the guide.

    Whether jewelry, gaming, drone parts, prosthetics, glasses, home decor or beyond, the Shapeways platform turns ideas into physical products and helps you sell them to the world.

    I have spoken to many of you over the past few weeks either by email or meet and greets. We’ve had some heated, excited, inspired, and supportive conversations! Whether positive or constructive feedback, we welcome it and thank you for caring so much to tell us.

    We are excited to show you Spring & Wonder!

    Greg
    CEO of Shapeways
     
    EvieL likes this.
  2. CybranKNight
    CybranKNight Well-Known Member
    Since the meet and greet I've been really curious to see where this goes, extending the "brand" all the way through from the storefront all the way to the buyer's home make a lot of sense for people that are developing "product ranges" rather than a broad series of individual products.
     
    EvieL likes this.
  3. Daphne
    Daphne Well-Known Member
    From the guide 'Because we’re doing something no one has done before'. That's a bit of slap in the face to all successful big jewelry brands using SW, isn't it? I haven't done all the shipping, packing and using Shopify myself, but there are sufficient designers that have.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2018
    FerretDesigns likes this.
  4. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    Certainly makes one wonder what Shapeways will be doing next spring.
     
  5. Ontogenie
    Ontogenie Well-Known Member
    I'm definitely interested in the ability to integrate customization into my Shopify site. I would probably have to develop some new products as my current ones are a little too specialized to be easily customizable, but the possibility is intriguing. The "customizable 3D printed jewelry" pitch on its own, however, has been tried before. Trove failed, for whatever reason, but hopefully SW will succeed.

    The best news, however, is the branded packaging and fully assembled jewelry aspect. Let's hope this isn't just a teaser and it's actually going to happen. My dream is to eventually move all of my business to SW so I can spend more time drinking pina coladas on the beach. Make it happen, SW!
     
    beachandbangle, EvieL and catslady123 like this.
  6. aliciafelber
    aliciafelber Well-Known Member
    I would love to develop or adapt my own designs to be easily customizable.
    I think a great example for customising is https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/projects/software/. Will something on this line be available?
    The customizer technology will be compatible to be embed on a Wix site?
     
  7. MrNibbles
    MrNibbles Well-Known Member
    This all sounds interesting but it seems to have come at the expense of older legacy functions being disrupted or becoming non-functional. Not sure what that means other than customization functions might be ported over to a newer system in the future?

    I'd say one of the biggest advantages of doing anything through SW, besides manufacture, is the final shipping phase. Most people don't want to deal with shipping, returns, or other excessive customer service - particularly if this is just a tangential activity like a hobby. Having some branded drop shipping options seems like a nice thing to have for some shops. Another segment of product offerings could be a more Etsy-like model where 3D prints are more extensively post processed or assembled by shop owners prior to being sent out to customers, although logistically that could become a nightmare if not done the right way.
     
  8. MrNibbles
    MrNibbles Well-Known Member
    You also need to feed the Spring and Wonder models something before they wither away completely.
     
  9. debdeb
    debdeb Well-Known Member
    Nice! How are the sales?
     
  10. ZapWizard
    ZapWizard Well-Known Member
    Here are the steps to doing this yourself for those who doesn't want to download it:
    Step 1:
    "We opened a Shopify storefront for our jewelry collections. We developed a seamless app integration from Shopify into the Shapeways’ platform."