Pricing Changes

Designer adapt to the new metrics, change their approach to suit, where cost goes down they don't change, where costs go up non-trivially they try to work around that aspect of the algorithm.
Last time the threads were full of test models to reverse engineer the algorithm.
Perhaps you can explain the algorithm sufficiently so designers know the parameters?

How does that apply to shops? Does a customer who want a nice pendent need to buy 5? Or is a this pricing that goes down for bulk orders?
'post production' polishing & dying, from what I've seen is mainly machine based, what does the machine care if it is 5 unique pieces or 5 the same?

Minimum orders seems incompatible with the unique aspects of 3D printing.

Oh,- is this true?
So... what's about an answer/discussion about this advice?:
https://www.shapeways.com/forum/t/p...purchasing-power-of-european-customers.97731/

I understand that most US citizens think there is no relevant world / customers outside the USA...
However, we are talking about business...

Oh, and how does does sprueing and loops/cages etc relate to minimums?

In my way of thinking I don't really care if prices go up, down, or sideways although people who have generated printed catalogs that include pricing might end up having a throbbing aneurysm. Production pricing is Shapeway's problem.

What I do care about is that mark ups remain constant. (Other people might prefer a percentage markup, I guess.) Perhaps its premature to inform us, or maybe it hasn't been considered yet, but will we regain the ability the set markups directly as we had 4 or 5 years ago and have them stick?

Pricing on my HO slot car chassis in my SHOP just went up by nearly 50%, pricing me and my customers out of the market. Thanks a lot Shapeways. While I understand the need to do price point testing to assure sustainability, you won't be able to sustain anything when your long-time customers and shop owners LEAVE. Your new pricing "Algorithm" is playing "Calvin Ball" with my shop... and my customers have been complaining to me to see what can be done. I will be finding a new print service.
https://www.shapeways.com/product/GUMGW3ZSM/ho-slot-car-chassis-sl2-mk3?optionId=61931595

I purchase products from HWP and then build them into working units with the price increase of the bare product and the cost of the parts to build it into a working sell able piece it puts it over the target market price. With the price increase of almost double I can no longer build that product at a competitive cost. My costumers will not support the price I would have to now charge for the finish product

The production cost is a small percentage of the cost for gold and platinum, and to lesser extent, silver.
As you plan, please take your raw material costs into account in a way that reflects your cost and includes my margin in the price to the customer in the marketplace. I do not want shapeways to lose money, and I can not afford to lose money either. Margin matters, for shapeways and for your artist designers. Basically we are your independent contractor employees, in this together.

There's never been a mechanism that allows multiple accounts/shops under the same registration email, or to link different accounts/shops after they have been created. That means no good way to move prototype designs to a real shop, or move designs between shops (without losing print history), or to avoid having to deal with Shapeways communications in multiple email accounts, some of which may only be accessed every few months or so.

Sounds like this will affect upcoming holiday sales ?

Hello Gregg,

Two weeks ago you wrote:
"I want to manage expectations. We won’t be able to rebuild search or change any core functionality on the marketplace by then. We would never risk disrupting the whole marketplace or SEO history. We will be establishing a vision of the marketplace moving into 2019."

Today you tell:
"Existing accounts will be seeing new pricing rolled out over the next few months"

So basically, what you told two weeks ago is not valid anymore? The next few months = the busiest period. Price changes = the most disruptive thing that can happen to a shop. Thank you very much!

You are surely managing expectations. The expectation level of your service is near zero, as you finally admit:
"Historically, Shapeways did not have a robust customer service team and instead redirected customer questions and feedback to the Forum."

Yes, keep'm in the dark.

But in all fairness the Customer Service Team is not all that bad, compared to the Rejection Team, the PR-Team and the Management Team. It is the Management Team that decides without any consultation to change websites, prices, rejection lotteries etc., not the Service Team who have to clean the mess SW created. It was the PR-Team that wrapped all nasty changes in yippee-texts.

Regards,
Maurice

This jab at the customer service team is ridiculous and false. I've been a member of Shapeways for over 5 years and I've never had to wait longer than 24 hours for a response from customer service nor have I ever been redirected to the Forum for an answer to my question.

However, I appreciate that you are being open and informative about the pricing changes. No one expects that prices will be static forever and everyone wants Shapeways to succeed. As mentioned above, though, a mechanism for shopowners to maintain a constant percentage markup regardless of pricing changes should have been included in the latest shop interface roll-out. We need it. Other companies offer it. Why is it not yet a thing at SW?

Either it shows a complete disconnect between the new management and the company it is supposed to turn around, or it is a calculated jab at the Eindhoven team that cannot be fired as cheaply and easily as its US counterparts... take your pick.

From what I get, shops (and creators) are an unfortunate byproduct of past-Shapeways.

Greg,

Well, I just created a new test shop to check what happens to the pricing. Thank you for the tip.

N scale 4 bicycles. Current price FUD: $5.87 / FXD: $6.07
--> new test shop's price: FUD: $7.50 / FXD: $7.50 both +5% handling = $7.88 / $7.88
--> +34% / +30%

N scale passenger car. Current price FUD: $5.12 / FXD: $5.78
--> new test shop's price: FUD: $7.50 / FXD: $8.45 both +5% handling = $7.88 / $8.87
--> +54% / +53%

N scale 2x passenger car. Current price FUD: $8.07 / FXD: $9.36
--> new test shop's price: FUD: $10.50 / FXD: $11.80 both +5% handling = $11.03 / $12.74
--> +37% / +36%

N scale omnibus. Current price FUD: $11.64 / FXD: N/A
--> new test shop's price: FUD: $14.64 / FXD: N/A both +5% handling = $15.37 / N/A
--> +32% / NA

N scale 5 historical cars (our best seller). Current price FUD: $19.05 / FXD: $21.57
--> new test shop's price: FUD: $17.50 / FXD: $21.58 both +5% handling = $18.38 / $22.66
--> -4% / +5%

N scale bicycle, cars, truck (5 yrs celebration kit). Current price FUD: $25.52 / FXD: $31.42
--> new test shop's price: FUD: $20.00 / FXD: $30.23 both +5% handling = $21.00 / $31.74
--> -18% / +1%

TT scale truck. Current price FUD: $15.48 / FXD: $20.56
--> new test shop's price: FUD: $21.63 / FXD: $36.68 both +5% handling = $22.71 / $38.51
--> +40% / +87%

H0 scale roller. Current price FUD: $6.00 / FXD: $7.61
--> new test shop's price: FUD: $15.62 / FXD: $23.78 both +5% handling = $16.40 / $24.97
--> +173% / +228%

N scale small scenery item (1 part). Current price WSF: $2.83
--> new test shop's price: WSF: $10.00 +5% handling = $10.50
--> +271%

N scale large scenery item (1 part). Current price WSF: $6.84
--> new test shop's price: WSF: $22.50 +5% handling = $23.63
--> +245%

N scale bundle of large scenery items (24 part). Current price WSF: $124.57
--> new test shop's price: WSF: TOO LARGE TO PRINT (!?)
--> BUG

Basically all prices go over the top. The extra +5% is hidden. That's just a silly way of trying to hide price increases. The smallest items seem the least affected, although there seems to be some fixed minimum prices, which will certainly hit the smallest items. Sets comprising multiple parts get in some cases cheaper. Slightly bigger items become much more expensive. It really is unclear why. There is no more handling with these larger parts. It contradicts the rationale expressed by Greg.
WSF items are just becoming ridicously priced. WSF was already made a lot more expencive, but the latest price innovation is just pathetic.

Maybe some discount if you order more items? No buddy. The prices remain as steep.

I feel sorry for SW that they have messed up their business that they need these draconic price changes. And let's guess: no smart ways to change your shop items pricing. Using csv is 20st century work.

Sorry Greg, but you have signalled that you have no problem to throw away your customer base in the bin before the November sales. You want a constructive dialog? Well, when did you council your shop owners? Where are the product improvements? Where is your service? What happened to the UI and the integration? Where did the Marketplace go?
And why are you publicly blaming the Service Team? These guys are basically the only ones that tried to doe their work properly.

Question: please send a complete overview of the price changes of our entire shop inventory. Thank you.

Regards,
Maurice

I'm not usually active on these forums because I've never usually had the need to say anything... until now.

I'm guessing this is why I was observing all these random price increases in some of the marketplace shops I was looking in over the weekend, while others stayed largely the same? It would have been nice to have some warning about these changes before they actually happened as some of the models I was considering ordering just randomly jumped up in price when I added them to cart. Now those models I had issues with only show the absurdly higher price... and these were just plain old WSF and FUD models, no fancy finishes or anything. Mostly these increases were £5-£15 per model which is already high on models that were only £5-£20 each beforehand, but one model I had my eye on went from being £30 to being £140... in WSF. That's an increase of over 300%. That's just absurd. An explanation of why this has gone up by so much would have been good. A victim of the new pricing algorithm I'm guessing?

As sad as I am to admit it, even though I usually spend £000's at a time whenever I order here, I fear I am going to be priced out of using Shapeways in the future if these price increases go on to impact all the shops I frequently use... and even my own models. As a UK-based customer, I already have to put up with terrible GBP-Euro exchange rates to buy here. The recent price changes I've observed (99% of them are significant increases) is probably going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back so to say.

That said, I've always been satisfied with customer service here as well as most of the prints I've got from here over the years, but even so, the sudden price increases are leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

I've been checking some of our models and I see bizarre price changes.
Especially WSF products go extremely over the top!
This is our best seller: https://shpws.me/DWTvIt is a very clever tool, and it can be printed in WSF without any problems. I think it is one of the most straight forward items Shapeways offers. Yet the price went up +264% !
Strangely enough, the new product price in dyed Versatile or Processed surface quality are equal to the non processed WSF/versatile plastic!

Can this be explained? It has nothing to do with the rationale stated by Greg. It should be more expensive.

Furthermore I noticed several bugs with larger items. Where previously (currently) parts could also be offered in FXD, the tool tells now that you cannot opt for FXD.
Also WSF seems to be bounded to (rather small max dimensions) leaving you the option of steel material only!

Ergo: your new quick tool does not work properly.

The new WSF prices are ridicously (+300% price range) and will mean an immediate stop for us offering that material!

For FUD/FXD items the new prices are closer to the price settings before the price change of last 2017 May. Strange: last year the reasons were the same as now. It is unbelievable that SW is changing prices up and down.

Furthermore I'd like to emphasize that price changes should be made in a period were sales are usually low. That would be May-July, not now. We're busy planning activities for November. With the time bomb Greg has dropped, it will be a lost year!

So, are we going to receive actual notifications when they new changes hit this time around? I'll be honest, I've been very happy with all the prints I've received and sold over the last 4 years, but things are coming to a point, I don't have that many models listed but the potential of having to go through all of them to fix up the pricing, on top of the prospect of a large price hike, doesn't make me feel like my future is with Shapeways.

Lets face it, anything 3D printed is already in an uphill battle when compared to both small production and mass production of similar items and having to deal with a price change where we can't even see WHY the prices change is really taking the idea of investing in my own printer(s) from a fun side project into a necessity in order to keep my customers...

I will add my plea to the other shop owners. Please don't roll out these changes until 2019, when our customers won't have sticker shock for their holiday gifts. I totally understand not having constant discounts. But to take those away AND add anywhere from 40-300% price increases will severely impact our customers. We've been pointing to the excellent detail and quality you provide and arguing that a slight price increase over that of molded metal minis is worth it. It won't be worth it to them when the price increases dramatically.