Printables: A place to sell my designs?
Hi Prusa and Printables team!
Thanks to you, I have built a little hobby business that has grown beyond what I ever thought it would, and I absolutely HATE manually processing orders via instagram 😅
I've looked at online shops, but everyone wants to take a undeserved slice of my ideas/designs/production/hobby; I would rather it go to someone who deserves it, i.e. YOU, who made it all possible.
So, like... store.printables.com/username ? A place where people can sell then designs, you guys handle the order and payment processing, plug into sendle, and YOU get a slice of a business you've essentially facilitated.
Did you guys mention this on Prusalive at some point? I'm vaguely remembering something while writing this...
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
Just curious have you thought about the potential competition that you might encounter if printables had a storefront for you?
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
It's a hobby, pays for my printer's upkeep, if someone want's to reverse engineer my designs and try to undercut me, good luck to them. 🤗
I mean anyone could jump on etsy and try to compete with the 3D printed stuff on there, or indeed my Shopify or whatever I used.
Would rather see Prusa get a cut as they were key in facilitated my pivot from hobby to annoying side hustle.
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
Not to be a total b*tch here but I really hope Printables never goes to paid models! Please keep it free and hobby based!
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
I meant sell PRINTS! Not models, just to be clear. I absolutely provide models when I make something I find handy for everyone to use.
Essentially a print service, I charge LESS that an actual print service costs (I know, I checked). I'm a one man band, selling my models supports my hobby and refine my designs.
It's almost like patreon, but you actually get something useful 🤷♂️
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
Will you post your STLs so that I can sell your prints?
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
What point are you trying to make by being deliberately obtuse? No, no I wont, obviously, that's not what I'm asking and your comment is off topic. A lot of my work is custom, I use parametric models I've spent years developing, people send me their door furniture, I measure, create a custom stl, slice, print, post. I'm a qualified carpenter, selling to other carpenters. It's niche, it's small, it's my hobby. I want to turn it into a small side business, a product sold with a warranty and support. Just because it's 3D manufactured you think what, you should be provided with my IP? If it was an injection moulded product, would you ask for the moulds? You're the type of person that would download a car, wouldn't you... 😉
Anyway, I simply want to further support Prusa by essentially giving them a percentage of the business I've build, enabled by their technology and support. That's all I'm asking 👌 Maybe they should try and grab the domain "sellables.com" 🤔 It would be a nice revenue stream for them, and would hopefully help them to work a lot of new tech into my XL before it arrives! ❤
Will you post your STLs so that I can sell your prints?
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
Hey I know just the one to start with! 😆
No, but I'll be happy to repost some very wonky .stl files from Thingiverse that you can try to sell. 😉
Will you post your STLs so that I can sell your prints?
Mini+MK3S+XL 5 Tool
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
Yes, and a certain company will then sue you for trademark infringement! 😉
Hey I know just the one to start with! 😆
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
So, like... store.printables.com/username ? A place where people can sell then designs, you guys handle the order and payment processing, plug into sendle, and YOU get a slice of a business you've essentially facilitated.
As of now, there is no option to offer a store front for users, or to offer up pay for print services.
A few years back I needed a store front option and did the research and I found that gumroad was generally the best around as far as the rates they charged and the least amount of complaints from people using their services. Not sure if that is still the case, but might be worth checking into as a side option.
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
Champion! That looks legit. According to their website marketing, they're awesome 😅
I'll sign up and give it a crack!
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
What I don't understand about Gumroad is, how do people actually *find* you and your products? On something like Etsy, I have at least a small chance that people find my stuff by searching and browsing, but who has ever heard of Gumroad? So your only access road is Google searches that direct a user to Gumroad. I guess it's okay if you do your advertising elsewhere and are just looking into an order processing engine and don't want to use any of the marketplace plugins for your website. I haven't looked into the Gumroad's order processing backend. One thing I do like about Etsy is that it makes order processing really easy. On the other hand, how they hit you with fees is totally opaque. But then again, similar to what the OP said, my Etsy business is a hobby, a way to give back to communities of interest to me, not a way to earn a living.
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- until all hell broke loose with the forum software...
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
Gumroad doesn't integrate with sendle by the looks. Sending someone a message with payment details isn't the annoying part, it's the manual entry of the date into sendle. Gross double handling.
RE: Printables: A place to sell my designs?
Well, there you go... https://blog.prusa3d.com/printables-store_87810/?_gl=1*yxs4xg*_ga*MjA4NzM2ODE1OC4xNzAwOTg2MzM3*_ga_3HK7B7RT5V*MTcwMjc5MzA3MC4xMC4xLjE3MDI3OTMxOTEuMC4wLjA.
Next step, selling printed models... I hope! 😅