Shapeways Shops 8th of January 2009

Joris,

I have tried many man jpg's throughout the past couple of weeks

-the original
-a scaled down original to match the pixel size of the shapeways banner
-a few random textures and pictures from my computer
-then I downloaded the shapeways banner and tried it
-then I renamed the shapeways banner and tried it

Failed everytime... *pout*

-Whystler

Whystler,

If you could send the offending JPG to me I'll take a look at it.

Joris

Don't worry Whystler, you are not alone.

VIII. I think there's a problem with escaping special characters in the description field. Entering ' is doubled to ''. After each save the number of ' is increased.

? Maybe I've missed that, but how can the picture of an item be changed from the default to an uploaded?

IX. Personalized discounts would be great or discounts for larger orders which are reducing the markup.

I would like to see a difference between an artist's Shapeways Gallery, and a Shapeways shop.

Most Important Difference 1: products shown

In my gallery, I would like to see everything - things that are for sale as well as things that are not for sale but can be seen by others, and things that only I can see.

In my shop, I would only like to see things that others can buy.

Most Important Difference 2: banner visibility

Also, I would like to see a bigger or longer banner at the top of my page. The smaller banner to the side gives very little impact. A longer banner across the top would really show people that they are now in a store.

Here is an example of my shop page on Etsy. The page looks like an Etsy page, but you know you are in my shop, because of the banner across the top:

https://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6554791

Important Difference: impulse product info

I think, on shop pages, the info given on the thumbnail should be geared towards buying. Get rid of the date submitted in the shop listing, and replace this with the product price (ie. from $50.00). When people are shopping, especially on shapeways, I think part of the first decision they make will be based on price.

Because of the high price of some items, people may not realize that certain kinds of products can be very reasonable. So let's not make them guess that my notcturnal timepiece is $40, when it's actually around $15.

Least Important Difference: more cosmetic control for seller

Ok, so maybe my suggestion of a "myspace" page made you cringe, like it did Joris But maybe one day it would be nice to be able to change the background/text colour schemes?

And ... YAY, I have a banner now! Thankyou!

-Whystler

I think by simply allowing limited html in the store description section, and by making that section more prominent (like under the large banner Whystler suggested) we'd immediately have more control over the look and feel of our store.

Hand in the air for a banner and html too... I'd like to be able to embed video if possible or at least embed links

BTW loving having the shops open Well done guys

Just a thought...(I think I was on daddymack's shop perusing a large/expensive piece)... that with the current fix priced mark-up.... An inquisitive buyer could reverse calculate that mark-up by selecting different materials and looking at the price for each.

A fixed percentage mark-up will eliminate this "issue", would that be a good idea?

I'm just thinking of the case of a $3000 item that someone was ready and willing to buy...only to figure out its $2500 markup then changes his mind about the purchase. If he/she was willing to buy on the $3000 price, its in the shapeways/shop owner's best interest to avoid having anything that could change the buyer's mind right?

(No I wasn't about to buy that $3000 bowl, nor was I bored enough to figure out that markup on it!)

So true. Most of a buying decision is the price, and the more clicks people have to make to see that, the less they buy. If only one piece of information is shown it should be price. If two, price and dimensions.

Prices also remind people that they're here to shop: this is a store not a museum, and the correct behavior is to find something you like and can afford and buy it, not wander around indefinitely critiquing the models.

Art appreciation is a fun hobby, but the job of a store is to sell. People can enjoy the art after they buy some.

I fully agree ....

Andreas

I think that the 'by date' option is a great idea as it simply lists the latest creations... I think that a by price option would work well too though

Having the price info and possibly a comment in the thumb would also work for me

Madox, I agree about the percentage markup option making things less reverse engineerable eg my Ultra Bowl
https://www.shapeways.com/model/13074/ultra_bowl__sixties_ser ies_1.html

appears as $120.95 in WSF (2 bucks a cube) , $164.44 in black detail (3 bucks a cube), difference of around 45 bucks (roughly the number of cubic cm)... Pretty easy to figure that I added about 40 bucks to the price

A percentage would totally eliminate this little back door into the business end of the shops

Umm... I think that it's the people who come and appreciate the art here that will end up buying it. This market barely exists at the moment and as an audience opens up to it they will want more than just 'price' as a reason to purchase.

This is such a great thread guys it's awesome to see everyones different approach to this emerging market

How far do IP rights go? If I were to model something on my own but base it on a preexisting model (like modeling something from a game or movie) is that allowed in a shop?

I'm currently updating some of my creations.

There's already an ongoing discussion about an upload of a new version, also in another part of the forum.

From the shop point of view and from the experiences of the last days i come to the conclusion that this is essential.

- As product designer I don't want to loose ratings or views when doing some corrections. These are an important mean for checking the interests of possible buyers
- I also don't want to loose references to this item I have put into other forums before.
- On the other hand possible buyers of former versions should also be aware that the item has changed.
(From the IT point of view that can mean versioning)

Andreas

re: IP rights ...

If you are repesenting a character from a game, in such a way that it is recognisable visibly as that character -OR- in such a way that it refers to that character's name, even if it doesn't refer to the character, you are unwise to make it, and especially unwise to offer it for sale.

A copyright of a game, includes retaining the rights for its characters, recognisable character forms, as well as the character names. Essentially the characters are a trademark of the game/game company. Even if the character is not officially trademarked, they can be argued to represent the game, which is very likely protected in this way.

Now, if you are inspired by the little elf called Link, and you want to make a sword carrying, flute playing elf, nothing should stop you from doing or selling this, as long as the character doesn't look like Link, or called Link.

For more information about how close people should come to such things as trademarked characters, do a search on trademarking.

Hope this helps!

-Whystler

I edited the titles of all my stuff to show prices. Let's see if it helps!

Looks great from my side of the screen... A good idea

Bathsheba,

We're looking at how we can display prices and specifically at replacing the upload date with the price, but your "hack" seems to work also.

Joris

Dear Shapeways Shopkeepers, dear Joris,

Great, you realised this platform in The Netherlands!

What I really miss on your site is filtering/ordering by price.
Suppose I am looking for a gift for a friend, I have a certain amount of money in mind (EUR 10 - EUR 20 e.g.). In the way the Shop is organised right now, you have to zap through all the models, which is very time-consuming.

Is there a possibility to realize this filtering/ordering?
Thanks!

Hans

Wisc,

we're currently looking at filtering and site search and trying to evaluate the different options.

One option would be to make "categories' of models:

all models with flowers in them
all gifts between 10-20 Euros
all valentines gifts for women between 20-30

the other would be to come up with just a filtering mechanism based on price.

The issue is not what would work right now, but what would work if we have many more models. How do you determine which model comes first when someone searches for a query such as Ring?

The number of votes, how recent it is? What would be fair, what would be the best for the shopper?

I myself am a fan of "categories" so that each member and groups of members can produce their own collections of models.

I do however realise that we will have to improve site search as well.

Dear Joris.

Thanks for your reaction!

Of the three options you provide the first and the last one are far too specific! My own choice would be: all gifts between 0-10, 10-20, 20 <x<50 etc (your second option).

When I buy a gift for someone my first filtering is regarding price. Within that price-range I pick a specific object. e.g. by using the tags designers themselves attribute to their object. But a price-range is definitely recommandable.

This system is what most webshops do, apart from a filtering/sorting by category.

All the best!

Hans