All,

Yesterday I got this email from Shapeways.



You can also see the above here:
http://feedback.shapeways.com/forums/111989-shapeways-feedback/suggestions/2435883-composite-model-support?tracking_code=1c8241af815f16b368ef5d93de1a3d11

I haven't had time to play with this yet but based on what I've read so far I don't believe this is the solution we had been hoping for. It appears to be simply a way to tie different models together. It doesn't say anything about rather the "per model" fee will now be a "per set" fee or if you'll just end up paying the "per model" fee for each model in the set. For example, I had envisioned being able to offer a 3x3x3 by uploading just 1 core, 1 face center, 1 edge, and 1 corner. If you did this and I'm not sure you can tie multiple copies of the same model together with the current system (you may, just haven't tried) would you end up paying the "per model" fee 27 times? If so this doesn't help us nearly as much as I was hoping it would. I'll try to look into it more as I have time but was curious to hear what others thought of this "solution".

Carl

Hi Carl,

The new Shapeways codes are excellent, if you want to be selling Shapeways products from an independent website.

For example, I could just advertise "click here" to buy my 17x17x17, and it would work.

But you are right, it does not solve the per-model start-up cost, nor is this solution very practical for selling through a Shapeways Shop.

Take again my 17x17x17 for example. Even though I put in big letters that people should NOT click the "Add to card" (which is just a big dummy cube), almost all my customers did actually click that button, and only through the manual intervention of Shapeways they got their puzzle instead of the dummy cube.

Oskar

Interesting... this does pretty much what I thought it did. As for using in it in the Shapeways Shop, I have an idea...

Take your 17x17x17 as the example again. Could you have the dummy cube listed in your shop with the "Display to the public" box checked and NOT check the "Offer for sale to others" box? If you did this I believe it would removed the "Add to Cart" button on the right but it MAY still leave the "Add Set to Cart" button. Could you try this? I'm currently having to work though the weekend and I'm not sure when I'll have some time to play with this new feature.

Even if that does work there are still 2 problems with this "solution"
(1) The model would state "Not for Sale" on your main shop page. You wouldn't know you could order the set until after you had opened the page for that model and saw the "Add Set to Cart" button.
(2) You've lost the ability to specify anything but the default printing material.

Carl

P.S. Dare I ask just how many 17x17x17's you'd sold? The "almost all my customers" comment has me thinking you've had at least 3 people buy this. If there were just 1, the statement would be "all my customers". If it were 2 and only 1 made this error, then I wouldn't call half my customers "almost all". 2 out of 3 I would think is the minimum requirement for such a statement. If so I'm very impressed. Congrats!