Pricing Changes

Not much from what I've been looking at. One other companies (that I've seen) offers materials with print specs like Shapeways but to sell something, you gotta buy it first.
The other company 's detail resin doesn't even come close to what Shapeways offers. Minimum wall thickness' of 2mm. That's amazing.

If their recent actions are anything to go by, they'd hide the model count and over-report the count to their supplies. Kress doesn't Kare.

You won't be able to discuss that here, either on the forum or through private message. I mean that literally, because Shapeways has built in censoring code that automatically deletes the names of any competitors. For example:

xometry.com
i.competitive service.com
competitive service.com
3dhubs.com
ponoko.com

So at least two of those were replaced with "competitive service". Brought to you by George Orwell and Friends!

Been checking each day since the announcement that detailed plastic pricing was going back to a schema similar to what it was prior to the change. Sounded like a promising step in the right direction, but my models did not drop in price. And that, to me, is another reason why the secret pricing algorithm is unacceptable. I have no idea why my models are priced where they're at. As far as I'm concerned it's arbitrary. First I have no idea if a product is viable unless I go through the effort of creating it and uploading, then second, I have no idea why the price even comes out the way it does. I really do hate that SW has put me in this position but I simply cannot accept arbitrary pricing on my products. You don't trust me to know why my products are priced the way they are, and now I don't trust that Shapeways is being fair about pricing. Interesting business plan you guys put together. Like I mentioned in a previous post, you guys aren't fixing your problems with this move. You're just creating a whole new one.

The N-scale trains I have uploaded after 22.10. went up around 30 % in price.
Yesterday I've uploaded them again, and the prices went down, to the prices before "big day of 22. october".

Seriously Shapeways?
Seriously?

Isn't Joker the real new CEO?

Holy Shamolians. I uploaded some smaller versions of keychain tags I was going to have made for my own use. Those keys don't organize themselves. 5 tags connected with a long cylinder through the holes having end knobs to make it one part for handling. Under old pricing I would have expected around $12 and no more than $15. But great googlies the price after upload is $30. THIRTY DOLLARS!

At best I would think the software is not distinguishing this model as one part because of a bug. Maybe the system shows a quick estimated price before doing a more thorough price calculation in the background? It's hard to tell since we're working in pricing algorithm/process vacuum here. Anyway I uploaded the thing to a competitor where it's only $12.90 in basic white nylon. Seems like a much better buy over there.

Prices of new items are not only ridiculous, they change all the time.
Since the new pricing of 22 October, prices have changed at least 4 times!

That means that it is impossible to set-up a marketplace at Shapeways. And I wonder how you could handle your Shopify shop if prices changes on daily basis. Not that I am interested in paying a monthly fee without reaching a substantial customer base.

It will however mean that we shall delete the price list and we will not offer novelties via Shapeways. I need to have a clear indication of product prices, otherwise I cannot communicatew this to customers. It seems Shapeways is really not interested in doing B2B.

Hmm...
So SW stopped running sales because prices were low...And now they are advertising the coming 15% off sale!
Have to wonder if part of the price increases was to allow them to do more sales...

I, and Im sure most everyone else, wouldve been fine with no more sales if they didnt constantly screw up their pricing, website, and company as a whole.

I also like how that "15% off" does NOT cancel out the additional print charges, fees, AND postage charges across their system. Its just a flashy way to get idiots to buy from them.

Shapeways will see sooner or later when they dont get any Orders anymore, they Shooting themself really in the Foot.

Funny Point is they give an shit About it, well i give an Shit if Shapeways survive or not since i make my own Models now and i also found an Service in Austria who is Cheaper as SW and make better Quality in Plastics and co.

It is sad that i wasted so much Time here..

I rechecked the key tags just now and they're still sitting at $30 for the set. So it would appear that lashing parts together with a sprue cord does not reduce cost and every small item in the glob costs $5. I did check the 3D tools and the glob does register as one part overall.

On the bright side file renaming is now resident in the 3 dot menu on the models page. It's still deficient as compared to it being on an actual model page but it shows they are actually working on it.

Dear Shapeways pricing folks,

I just noticed another pricing change after the one you announced this past weekend. I spent Monday fixing the prices in our shop. I am doing the exact same thing today after I checked on a ship that I used the new renaming tool on (for which, thanks) and saw weird prices on it. So I went and checked another model and found that the Fine Detail Plastic prices changed on it, too.

I try very hard to have a professional shop, meaning that our prices end in .99. Changing the prices, especially without telling us makes it very hard for me to do that. Right now it is affecting the 21 items we released on November 1. I shudder to think what I will be going through with over 1200 items for sale.

Please, please stabilize the prices. If you cannot, then at least announce price changes so that we can react to them. To say that I am annoyed is perhaps an understatement.

Jean

SW doesn't give a shit. It's evident.

One more test of the key tags. For this test I fused the tags to the constraining cord with small cylinders inside the tag holes and the price dropped to $8.88 (from $30). There definitely appears to be a huge bug in the pricing for the unfused item. The 3D tools recognizes the unfused model as being one part but the pricing algorithms recognize the unfused model as 6 parts. Things are not on the same page.

In case anyone is wondering the tag holes are 3.8mm diameter and the blobs on the ends of the constraining cord are 5mm in diameter. The cord itself is 2.1mm diameter.





ETA: One last test. I increased the diameters of the end blobs to 8mm and the resulting price is now $8.94. That means that there's some minimum differential threshold that is required when constraining loose parts on a cord that falls somewhere between 1.2mm and 3mm. However there's still that mismatch between 3D tools part number evaluation and pricing algorithm part number evaluation that needs to be fixed.

I have to believe they do care. They did just stealth release a renaming tool on the MyModels page. (It is part of the 3-dot menu on the far right of the list of files.) It is one of the things I missed in my work and not having it added significantly to the paperwork I maintain. I am thankful that it is back, albeit in an awkward spot. But still, having it will ultimately cut down on the time I spend updating the spreadsheet I maintain.

What I do believe is they don't realize how their changes affect shop owners. Maybe many of the folks who throw up a few models that they built for their own pleasure (and if they sell one, hey, wow! Found money!) don't care. But those of us who do a higher volume of business do care and often we have more products to fix than the average hobbyist's shop.

If I don't take the time to tell them, then they may never know how their changes affected us. If they don't know, they cannot alter their behavior. If I want them to make changes in how they operate, then I have to act like a partner and tell them not only what I don't like, but why and how it affected me. That is what I am choosing to do.

Yes, I am ever the optimist.

Jean

We're not making complex things like iPhones but anyone who has worked in an environment where tracking BOMs, revisions, etc. is done would understand how making seemingly small changes to the SW environment could end up being problematic for serious "production partners." The STEM students that upload a few models for class projects are not the same as users that sell hundreds or thousands of models.

Features have always been mysteriously popping in and out of the system without much fanfare or notice. Some of them have been strange things like last active time stamping of product pages. It's not clear if such changes were driven from the top, at a group level, or just the musings of one of the software crew. But the removal of more serious things like product histories are confounding. I suppose it's a classic start-up company problem. Everyone wants to innovate and few if any employees have experience with the drudgery of traditional product tracking/upkeep issues. That stuff isn't sexy.

True... except that Shapeways has been in business for nearly a decade now. I've been a shop owner for nearly 8 years. They really need to move beyond the start-up feel and get more professional about how they're running the place.

That type of thing has been mentioned for just as many years... I guess there's now a more hands on CEO directing things so maybe everyone can be herded in a more professional direction, however that may turn out for us.

Herded right out the door. I'm thinking they can do without my $50K worth of parts printed annually.. probably just a nuisance for them these days. I WILL be removing the store (1500+ parts) on 31 Dec, and my 12,000 customer base is well aware its coming. (yes, all these numbers are verified by Google Analytics). The process to upload parts and resize and get into a store like Shopify is no longer worth my time.