Shapeways Shops go live

January 8, 2009

As of today we’ve gone live with the Shapeways Shops. The Shapeways Shops mean that everyone that can 3D model can now sell tangible products worldwide without any start-up costs. So if you are a designer you can join us and within a few minutes your products can be shipped, distributed and sold all over the world.

Here is a short overview:

• The rights of the designs will always remain with you.
• You can choose your own URL, Shop name and upload your logo.
• You can decide how much money you would like to make on each model.
• Shapeways does the production, shipping, billing and customer service so that you can concentrate on designing.

If you would like to open your own Shop we have a guide set up showing you how to do this.

You can also browse the first Shops here.

If you’re not a 3D modeler do not despair, there is lots in it for you too. This is your chance to buy a knotted gear, a functional nocturlabe that helps you tell the time with the stars, a Voronoi network with the symmetry of a snub dodecahedron, or a trefoil knot of high genus hyperbolic kelp. At $22.91 including shipping it is the cheapest trefoiled knot of high genus hyperbolic kelp I have ever seen! These are simply impossible, improbable and beautiful things that do not exist anywhere else.

For those handy got to have around the house items we have hollow dice, a penguin, a one quarter scale model of a Mac iic, and the cutest tabletop toothpick holder ever.

We are proud to be the worlds first marketplace for 3D printed goods.

We hope to inspire: you, our community of members, to new heights in your creativity. This in turn will enable more and more people to create and buy unique objects that better reflect what they want and need than today’s mass produced products do. As this happens we can add new production techniques and lower prices making the products on Shapeways even more accessible. Meanwhile as we grow and prosper our community members also grow and prosper. This reinforces our ability to inspire you and the whole thing becomes an autocatalytic cycle. That is basically the plan, so want to join in and be a part of that?