Looking at moving to imaterialse

#1

Hi. I am looking at moving my webstore from That Other Place[1] that is censored as they are pending significantly increasing their prices, to imaterialise. I have a large webstore with about 300 models - most of which I would have to put into sprues to maximise cost-efficency on your site.

My first test prints from you were very satisfactory, and, once I have altered from sinlge models to sprues, you are consideraly cheaper for the same model than That Other Place is now, let alone after in increase.

However, it appears to say that I cannot sell any products that i have not already purchased myself. This would be a major impairment to my business (the cost to re-purchase even a fraction of those models is prohibitive - I would even, due to sprue issues need to-repurchase the test print). I - and a lot of other shop owners at That Other Place - are looking at other options, so it could be a fair number of well-established webshops will also be looking; this could be a major stumbling block.

Thus I am asking if there is any kind of mechanism in place to deal with this sort of situation, current or planned?

[1]As apparently, the use of that name is censored. I find that sort of amusing.

#2

Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. The rules that i.materialise established about shop owners will not change for the moment or in the near future. You need to order the items first, before you can put them on our website.
Hopefully you can understand this.

#3

I am likewise looking to move my shop from Another Place to i.materialise.com or another print service. I have about 500 models for sale in my catalog there (including two major scales).

While I like that your “must print policy” has the effect of filtering out garbage and non-printable models from your catalogs, it would not be economically feasible for me to order 500 models at (say) $10 apiece just to move my catalog to i-materialise. Many of the models are low volume and it would take quite a long time to recover $5000 in profits and reach the break-even point.

You may choose to retain your policy, but you should know you are missing out on a large potential customer base of designers moving from another service. To those with a large catalog to move, your policy has the effect of saying, “look elsewhere”.

#4

Dear Daryl,

Thank you for contacting us. Could you please send us a mail to our contact address (https://i.materialise.com/en/contact) - attn of Esther? In that way, we can answer you in a private message.

#5

Hi Esther, I would be happy to respond, but the email-form on that site seems to require either a valid Offline Order Price Number or a valid Order Reference.
Daryl

#6

Hello Daryl,

I’ve checked and here you find the link that can be used : https://imaterialise.helpjuice.com/contact-us?contact_query=Please%20enter%20your%20question
Have a nice day.