Shapeways had a banner on the website with "SHIP4FREE" promotion code just the other day. I tried to use it but it tells me it's "invalid or expired". Was it my imagination?
I believe it was only for items listed in their gift guide or gift collection or whatever it is called.
Yes, I believe the order had to contain at least one item from their "holiday gift guide", and the offer was only valid for delivery addresses in the US and EU.
These items selected by Shapeways to be promoted (and widely advertised) with free shipping, supposed to be "carefully handpicked" from Shapeways staff, for being related to the upcoming holidays (Christmas?) season. Mysteriously, most of them are not related at all with terms like "holidays", "gift" or "good taste and artistry", while some of these items have never been 3D printed before and still having the "first to try" tag on! Actually, nobody can understand HOW and WHY these (many) items are promoted in such an overtly tendentious manner. Shapeways team will never stop surprising us by selecting "carefully handpicked" items to promote and advertise, when some of them have never printed before nor have decent photos or any explaining description text on their page. Shapeways CEO must have an unusual logic, which is not clear to us.
@ Andrewsimonthomas, Ofcourse! I've already sent you PM with some examples, since it is not proper to expose items and shops in public for no reason. After all, the promoted / advertised designers are not responsible.
Strange claim to make when at least the vast majority of items clearly has real photographs. I bet what you saw were either customizable models that will always be displayed as "first to try", or things that lost their print success rate when they were converted to variants.
Shapeways put out a call in the forums with a list of categories for the holiday gift guide and left it to the designers to suggest their products in the forum thread. The featured products were chosen from that thread. Perhaps you missed it. And, as many of my products are included, I object strenuously to the suggestion that they are lacking in "good taste and artistry."
Dear Kimberly, I was not referring to your products. Your products, DO have excelent taste and artistry. IMHO, your products are the only ones could be considered as related to "HOLIDAY SEASON" promotion.
I've got three items in the gift guide, two of which are made of snowflakes, which I think are holiday related. Regardless, the gift guide was never meant to exclusively contain holiday themed items, but simply items that make good gifts. I believe there is one actual Christmas category, and a Hanukkah one as well. Do watch for the emails and forum thread (under "Official Announcements") next year so you, too, can submit items for consideration. One of the guidelines is actually "Has at least one photo, set as default photo." You can see this year's thread here. Best, ~Sarah