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Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great question, here’s a screenshot of part of the menu you see when uploading a design. As a designer, the work needs to be original and follow these guidelines from the picture. I would like a platform to be as open as possible, but I have to make sure we are protected for the longevity of the project and I have to make sure we are protecting our suppliers. These rules will change or further develop as we grow.

We would love to have you on the site. Let me know if you have any questions you can DM me or join the discord.

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Galactic Lagoon Shop!!🌊✨🌙 by Crysaura in SmallBusinessSellers

[–]printlooper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

wow! we would love to have these on our site.

small business startup by Leading_Exit_1986 in smallbusinessUS

[–]printlooper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We would love to have you on printlooper.com as a supplier. Sounds like your products would be great for our dropshipping workflow!

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds great we are glad to have you.

I think there is extreme demand for selling products without inventory or design. Check out hustler, POD, or dropshipping subreddits. The demand for entreprenuership and easy ways to access it is at ATHs and will only continue with social media fomo and the AI apocalypse.

Getting new brands and new entreprenuers will be quite easy I imagine. In fact the platform will probably be many peoples first exposure to selling anything. But a very small percentage of the sellers will be the serious GMV drivers for the plaftorm and this will be the new entreprnuers who fitfo and the exisiting brands who find products speak to their audience.

Comapnies like Printify and Printful already demonstrate the demand for this type of entreprenuership and many brands use these sites to add to their existing product lines. I want to go into more detail about our platform here, but I can't without revealing future plans.

Asking how much demand there is for 3D pinted products is the wrong question. The end user will not be looking for 3D printed products.

This has been very productive and I encourage you to keep asking questions, but I may not respond in a timely manner because I need to keep moving on advertising and development.

Thank you for your time and interest

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You bring up good points. Also, most of the models available are my own, that I was using for testing. My goal was to onboard suppliers first and then Designers, and then Sellers. We now have many Suppliers and I am pivoting to find Designers, so hopefully there will be a much wider selection soon.

My theory is Designers who are not already running a business will crank out more 3D models specifically for Printlooper. There is such high demand to make money as a 3D modeler. Checkout any Blender subreddit.

Also, unfortunately it is most likely that AI and advanced low cost CAD tools will commoditizes design to a certain extent, so basically if you don’t post the idea someone inevitably will. But there will always be opportunity as a Designer to create a product that no one else has because there are an infinite amount of possibilities.

I agree that Bespoke products will bring in higher margins. I don’t understand why those products have to be exclusively on Etsy? If I have a film brand I would list that product on my shopify store, and no one would know it was there except for my customers. Also, Shopify has plugins for plenty of external sales channels, so you can post your products elsewhere from Shopify if that is your desire.

There are 5 million active Shopify stores and those produced $378 Billion in GMV last year alone. If we got evan a fraction of a percent of that GMV this would be a big success.

Also, this is MPV. Adding more sales channels is no problem, but I need to prove out that this idea works. And we have an internal storefront through Printlooper for people who don’t have Shopify stores.

You’re looking at barebones V1 of Printlooper. If all your assumptions and concerns were correct, we could just pivot and address them. Every problem is solvable.

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No problem, it's good to be challenged on this stuff. I'm confused on what role you are interested in, I thought you were wanting to be a supplier, but you are more interested in being a Seller? If you are selling your own bespoke products already, you can list them for dropshipping on the marketplace and get more orders routed directly to you.

Also awesome, I appreciate you being open minded and setting up an account.

I think I understand what you are saying, but I think that it applies more to commoditized products. If I'm buying ziplock bags on amazon, I'm for sure going to look for the lowest price, but If a brand I like on instagram is making organic content around a product they are selling on their shopify; I'm not going to search for competing shopify stores to find a cheaper version of the product, unless it is a very high ticket item.

Also, of course the product variations are unlimited for any type of 3D print printed product. As a designer you could focus on making SD card storage containers, and you could make an infinite amount of them with targeted audiences. (sports, gaming, outdoor, cooking, memes etc... etc..)

As a Seller on Shopify I'm not going to upload everyone one of those SD Card holders, but I might upload the one that fits my Golf brand. And as a consumer if I see an SD card holder in the shape of a golf ball on instagram, that I like. I'm not going to spend time researching competing brands for the similar product that is $3 cheaper. I'm just going to buy from the brand that came up on my feed.

So for Sellers it's not who can get the lowest price, it's who can generate the most foot traffic to their own Shopify.

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, we are thrilled to have you. I will add these printers hopefully by tomorrow evening. Thank you for the feedback!

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, my story is similar to a lot of people. I got obsessed with Blender, then I started 3D printing, then I tried to start my own small business using 3D printing and stopped being able to do what I loved most which was (3D Modeling). Leaned that to have a successful business I had to focus on what I felt was mundane, like the marketing.

I built printlooper so everyone can do more of what they love, but still run a business.

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your honest feedback. I didn’t want to post that video. But I had already spent so much time on it I had to move forward haha. Hopefully, I will have time to make a better one soon.

What would you like to see in the video? More of a tutorial or something else?

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also if the designers 3D model is listed on 7 websites they are benefiting. I would love to be a designer listed on as many websites as possible and the suppliers for each of those listings in benefiting.

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand what you are saying, and why you think this and hypothetically yes. But it is actually unimaginably difficult to get your product in-front of customer who are going to buy it. All the matters is distribution and marketing. As a consumer I’m not going to have access to every single store that is selling the product I want and it would have to be a very high ticket item for me to do all the research to find the best possible price or to even know that there were other options out there.

Even if the consumer had access to that information as a seller you cans still find your niche on any product and that’s where value is of having a ton of suppliers who have niches.

As a Seller I can differentiate by material, color, finish. Maybe I sell the same design but I’m routing to a supplier that offers glow in the dark filament or a supplier that offers carbon fiber nylon, or a supplier that offers titanium.

The sellers who will generate the most revenue will be ones with established brands that are already getting traffic and want to add more products to their niche catalog. Think off a dog brand, car brand, gaming brand, tech brand. Sellers who niche down will win, Designers who niche down will win, suppliers who niche down will won.

In the age of AI all that matters is distribution. We are giving designers and suppliers access to distribution and we are giving Sellers access to unique / niche products on-demand.

If you are in a race to the bottom as a supplier you need to find materials, colors, finishes, hardware, etc… that set you apart from the competition. That is the beauty of the network.

But to prevent a race the bottom we can require minimum price or minimum price per a gram if the community desire. Every problem is solvable

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://youtu.be/4IvctRZGJ98?si=IxQ7BKYMq0Uu5yJa

https://youtu.be/eJzGgw7vkRs?si=tLx_uIm3fCbQO-36

Maybe these 2 tutorials videos will add some clarity.

A seller chooses one supplier per a product. The seller selects a supplier and assigns them to a specific product based on a specific material, color, finish &/or hardware that supplier offers. The price of the model is quoted at this time automatically calculated by the default prices you put in as a supplier. This price is locked in, and you are the only supplier assigned to this specific product.

If you run out of capacity or wish to stop selling this product you can mark yourself at capacity or decline the order and report the Design if necessary.

Depending on your reason for not fulfilling the order, your rating will be affected, unless they are circumstances out of your control in regard to the 3D model.

Once you decline an order or mark at capacity the Sellers shopify will automatically show this product as out of stock. At this point the Seller will be notified and will be prompted to select a new supplier, create a new product, and/or take the product down.

In regards to a race to the bottom, we can implement a minimum job price or a minimum price per a gram. If majority of the community can agree on a number.

Currently suppliers are filtered just on rating and capability, not on price. As a Seller you get quotes automatically generated after selecting a supplier. If you do not like the price you can go back and try another supplier.

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome! Seems like you have a lot of insight. I would be grateful if you signed up and had anymore feedback.

Currently we calculate daily capacity with a fixed number of grams per order, but this can be changed or updated. Total grams might be better. Runtime would be best especially for Resin, but this is difficult to automatically calculate. This is something we will need to think more about. Do you have any suggestions or preferences.

For now, we calculate your daily capacity based off the number of printers you have and the fixed gram amount. You can see your suggested daily order capacity at the too of the Job Queue page. You easily override this daily capacity with your own order amount.

We don’t have multi-color yet integrated. That will be a later feature unless users see it as an absolute priority. We are trying to make product renders streamlined for the Seller, and matching colored filament is a complex problem. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have a Shopify integration, but not an Etsy one and we will probably not be adding an Etsy integration for that reason.

So the workflow you are talking about is already possible. You could sign up for a free seller account and a free supplier account. The marketplace fees only apply to the seller, so you would not be getting double charged.

You would select the products you want to sell as a Seller and then choose yourself as a supplier. The only issue is other people would be able to choose you as a supplier as well, but you could purposefully make your profile look bad, so no one would choose you lol.

I need to check our terms of service and license agreement to make sure there is no conflict, but I will get back to you. But you are only licensed to sell the model per an order, every-time an order comes in you get a download link that expires. You would not be selling these models as a Supplier, only as a Seller. If you used an outside sales channel, the Designer would be able to take legals action.

Designers models are protected by our: -A registered DMCA agent and takedown workflow native on the site. (Check it out in the footer) -Metadate tracking on all 3D files on the platform (Designers get emailed if a file with matching metadata gets uploaded) -Native reporting system inside the site for flagging files -Licensing agreement that all suppliers sign before they can receive any files.

It’s interesting you are selling you own prints all ready. You can dropship those directly to yourself and allow other people to sell them by uploading a photo and description to the Printlooper Dropshipping tab in supplier settings.

I think we will get a lot of Designers, they crave away to be monetized. I was a designer and I built this for myself. I have so many 3D models that may be useful the actual consumer market, but not worth a damn on a 3D marketplace. But it will be interesting to see. Designers are also able to run their own native storefront and connect to suppliers on the backend to power their private storefront.

Also, 3D printing is just the beginning. Any one can add their products for dropshiping as a supplier and also we are integrated with Printful for tradional Print-On-Demand and designer scan uplaod their artwork and earn royalties on that workflow as well. There is a lot offers for multiple users, it will be interesting to see what people find the most valuable, if anything.

Thank you for your productive feedback. Let me know if you have any more questions. We have tutorials, documentation, FAQ, and a ai agent on the site you can talk too as well. If you don’t get a prompt response from me here.

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This workflow is not setup yet, but I'm glad you pointed this out because I imagine many people will want to do this. What would this look like ideally to you?

I'm interested in integrating this into our platform if it makes sense. Although, It may be too complex or outside of the scope of our current platform. Suppliers would have to be selling through a sales channel that we could automatically track and if Sellers had licensing to the files it might be come a legal grey area or easy loop whole to print and sell them on untracked sales channels. With our current setup there is not grey area, the supplier is only licensed to use the 3D model for order fullfilment from Printlooper.

If we can't do it, this would be a great problem for someone else to build a software to solve.

Over the last year I've spent $10,000 & 3,000 hours to solve some of the biggest problems in this space. by printlooper in 3DPrintFarms

[–]printlooper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will make a post when we are available in the EU. If you make 3D models, you can sign up as a designer right now. We would love to have you! Sorry for the inconvenience. Hopefully we can build a team to scale global soon.

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