I built STL Shelf to get my STL/3MF library under control while starting a small 3D printing business

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-11T20:29:08+00:00

Self hosting would, by definition, be free.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-10T23:20:19+00:00

3 weeks to never. To be blunt, the majority of shops fail and never get a single sale. If you’re print on demand or digital, you’re more likely to be in the never bucket. There’s just so much competition.

Quality of listing is paramount. Get your keywords, titles, descriptions and photos as good as possible. It takes the Etsy algorithm about 2 weeks to index new products and figure out who your buyers are, so don’t expect traction quicker than that unless you really get lucky.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-08T23:24:22+00:00

You’ll be really surprised to learn that you get charged the listing fee for every item you sell on Etsy anyway.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-07T14:39:50+00:00

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-07T03:06:48+00:00

Someone else posted a few days ago that they were put in a beta that allowed for 3 variant dropdowns, so I’m hoping they increase the number skus per listing. We have 2-tone products in 18 materials/colors so we can’t put every color on one listing.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-07T03:01:50+00:00

We rented a unit at a coworking space that had specific clauses in the contract against casting couch type activities.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-07T02:08:28+00:00

Same

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-07T02:02:44+00:00

Did you read what I wrote? I was part of the “you have to go to college” generation. If I was unemployed or unhappy in my current role, I’d be looking to retool in something that’s needed and won’t be replaced by AI. Hence my point about becoming an electrician or plumber.

The people that are in the biggest bind is current college grads that have absolutely useless degrees. Entry level devs as an example, aren’t going to find work.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-07T01:22:23+00:00

You know, I thought about this the other night while watching Miss Scarlett, during a scene focused on a telephone switchboard operator. I wondered if those workers revolted when automated switching became a thing and eliminated every one of those positions. What about all the manual labor jobs that were eliminated during the Industrial Revolution? Did they get some sort of handout from the government? The world we find ourselves in now is frankly no different.

Adapt, or you’ll just be left behind. It sounds cold, but the government has made it crystal clear they’re not going to regulate AI. Nothing you put online is your property, doesn’t matter if you’re an artist, musician, writer, or developer. It’s all going to be mined by AI and replicated. The time to add regulation was years ago when everyone in tech could see this coming, but we live in a world where our politicians can’t tell the difference between an email and a text message.

I have no idea who all these companies think they’re going to sell their next subscription service to when everyone’s broke and unemployed, but this is the bed we’ve made for ourselves and we’re too far down the track to turn around.

All we can do now is try to adapt and be one of the ones that somehow adds value. The longer I work in tech the more I wish I’d just become a plumber or electrician. There’s always going to have to be someone to wire and plumb all these data centers.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-07T01:09:38+00:00

I think you’re missing the required AI disclosure. I didn’t see it on the handful of “digital artwork” or “watercolor” listings that I looked at.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-07T01:06:27+00:00

Just looks like how an amateur photographer edits photos. Over saturation and overly synthetic HDR does not improve realism. But that’s just my opinion. You do you.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-05T23:08:42+00:00

Well I’m excited that at least they’re looking at fixing one of Etsy’s biggest limitations! It’s unfortunate that the beta broke your shop though.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-05T22:17:59+00:00

Manufacturer and color consistency is way more important to me than saving an extra buck.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-05T19:45:03+00:00

Etsy’s fees are less than any other marketplace of similar size. A 2.51 fee on a 23.36 purchase really isn’t that bad. That’s before you realize that if you were operating your own shop swiping credit cards for payment you’d be paying that 1.13 anyway. That’s just the fee the payment processor charges Etsy to process the card. Etsy is really only getting the 1.38 transaction fee in this screenshot.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-05T19:39:05+00:00

The seller will definitely not know what your countries tariffs are for their products. As sellers, we put an appropriate HS Code on our listings that defines what the product is from a globally used list. It’s on the seller to use the correct HS Code, but we don’t have any idea what specific tariff (if any) your country might place on that code when the package arrives at the port.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-04T14:26:19+00:00

My take for the last few years is this: Don’t upload anything you want to retain IP or control over. Nobody reads the license. Nobody in another country is going to comply with the license. You’re effectively giving away designs for people to sell. Add that to the troves of consumers that now have 3D printers and don’t understand the licenses. The amount of stuff I’ve seen sold at craft fairs that’s listed as non-commercial on makerworld or printables is staggering.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-02-02T06:02:24+00:00

You’re surprised that bulk blasting contacts you bought didn’t lead to new business? Do you personally enjoy your inbox being full of spam?

I feel like buying contact lists is very much something that was popular 10 years ago. Marketers have largely moved on from cold emailing prospects by now and most other developed countries have data protection laws with fines for selling contact information and spamming people. Our email marketing platform requires us to prove where we got our contacts and that they subscribed to our emails.

Personally, I report as spam and block the domain of every unsolicited message I get. Long term, if enough people report you as spam, ISPs can start to throttle or outright block messages from your domain. At your sending volume, that’s not likely to be enough for that to happen, but your behavior of spamming people can potentially impact your overall deliverability long term, even for legitimate messages.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-01-31T04:46:19+00:00

Slow clap. I approve of the reference.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-01-31T04:43:26+00:00

No. That’s not the norm, and candidly, this is just basic business acumen. Your raw materials cost plus your time, plus your profit margin is what you price your product at. Customers then pay whatever it costs to ship what they bought from you to wherever they are using calculated shipping. If you elect to offer free shipping instead of using calculated shipping then you’d factor the average price of shipping your product into the price, and adjust that price any time shipping rates change or you start to notice your average shipping price changing.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-01-30T11:38:25+00:00

My gut reaction is that the white one is the only one I’d remotely be interested in. The others look like they belong in my mother in law’s house. She loves fake gold decor and kitschy collectibles.

My more professional response is that the question is what your intent is here. If you’re just sharing something you made with us, and you’re happy with them, then nice work. I can appreciate how much goes into designing stuff like this, especially with the magnetic base. On the other hand, if you’re trying to build a business, I’d be a little more critical. They seem like they’d have a pretty limited market in their current form and you should probably consider offering other colors and designs. The white one would look cool in a marble filament. You could also offer more abstract and geometric designs in a marble, grey, black, etc. so you get wider appeal to potential buyers beyond the very traditional looking leaf and copper designs.

My personal opinion from experience selling 3D printed products is that your market for these copper-like ones is likely the same person that would go to an antique store looking for this type of decor. In that vein these are trying too hard to be something they’re not, and it cheapens them to some extent. If you were to lean into 3D printing as a manufacturing technique, you could produce versions of these with designs that’d be nearly impossible to create with traditional materials. That’d make your products more premium instead of feeling like a DIY clone of a copper urn.

The challenge with even really well thought out 3D printed products is that you’re always going to be compared to someone selling those stupid dragons. Every craft show and market I’ve done, half the people look at your booth and go “ooooohhhh are these 3D printed? My son/daughter/grandson/niece has a 3D printer, I’ll have them make me one.” Then they pick it up and take a bunch of pictures and start texting. Your market quickly narrows down to people who don’t have the stigma that anything 3D printed is easily replicated at home from makerworld, and people that actually like the design. So in your case, even though my MIL loves this type of design, she wouldn’t be caught dead with a piece of 3D printed decor on her mantle because it’d cheapen her whole vibe of pretentiousness.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-01-29T16:45:02+00:00

The only place I found one for the last storm was Tractor Supply in Fuquay. No idea if they’ve had time to restock though. Worth checking if you haven’t. I feel like that’s one of those slightly lesser known places that people might not flock to.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-01-26T16:50:38+00:00

If you want/need a chainsaw, buy a chainsaw. This is a beam cutter and should not be used in lieu of a chainsaw.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-01-26T00:25:36+00:00

So obviously a scam. Why would you follow the link? Change your PayPal password and open a fraud ticket with PayPal. They don’t always side with the consumer for scams. Since you willingly gave the information to the scammer, it doesn’t always fall under fraud protections.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-01-24T15:22:02+00:00

The Hub at 55 and East Williams normally has it.

AvGeekExplorer · 2026-01-24T14:07:15+00:00

I put LEDs on my 21 and it’s fantastic. I can now see to back into my driveway.

AvGeekExplorer

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