Back in December, Shapeways took an essential step on our journey home — acquiring Thangs. Today marks the next milestone: an early access release of our new Print on Demand (PoD) feature on Thangs, powered by Shapeways’ world-class manufacturing engine.
This launch is intentionally limited so that we can optimize the onboarding experience in the coming quarter. We will expand quickly based on designer feedback. You can see dozens of amazing designs with the option to print directly from Thangs here.
The journey home
Before we acquired Thangs we were clear in our plan:
- Step One: Acquiring Thangs. The Thangs platform offers great discoverability, robust IP protections, and a dynamic marketplace. This was a solid foundation on which to build, with important improvements over the former Shapeways Shops environment.
- Step Two (Today): Early Access Release of Print on Demand, starting with a select group of designers, with manual onboarding to ensure quality and stability.
- Step Three (Soon): Self-service Print on Demand, enabling all designers to sell printed versions of their creations globally.
- Step Four (Future): Enhancing the Shapeways Shop experience using modern technologies to delight users and designers alike— automated, seamless, and accessible to all pre-approved designers. Sign Up Here
Marleen Vogelaar: “We’re really happy to be launching the Print on Demand feature within Thangs already and make good on the ambitions we had from the very start of the journey. We are always mindful that the progress we want to see will take time, and we strive to put our customers first while driving developments forwards. This initial iteration of the Print on Demand button lets us prove out the system, learn from the implementation and ensure that we successfully reach the ultimate goal for this part of the journey: to bring back the full Shapeways Shop experience and strengthen the Thangs community by offering additional means to monetize on their designs and products.”
Our commitment to creators
We genuinely believe the future belongs to creators. Niche is becoming mainstream! Thangs embraces this shift in market focus by empowering designers to offer easy access to both digital and physical product sales without worrying about inventory, production, invoices, fulfillment and more. Thangs also offers a vibrant marketplace that actively showcases creators’ unique offerings, enhancing discoverability and allowing creators to reach a substantial, educated audience. Have a look at this gorgeous vase from Lofted Goods!
MCM Vase by Lofted Goods
Shapeways as a manufacturing engine for Thangs
Thangs is where creators will connect directly with customers. Shapeways provides the essential infrastructure behind the scenes, ensuring exceptional quality and scalability that lets creators do what they really want to do… create.
Professional technologies such as selective laser sintering (SLS), multi jet fusion (MJF) and metal casting require a level of investment, infrastructure and expertise that means creators have little to no access. With Shapeways acting as the manufacturing engine behind the scenes, creators can immediately offer products and parts in a whole range of polymer and metals materials and finishes — and have access to new technologies added by Shapeways automatically.
Additionally, our industry-leading production standards are trusted by businesses worldwide, so creators can be confident that the parts their customers receive will be shown the same love and attention as the original design.
The next steps
This limited launch offers a tantalising glimpse at what’s to come. In the next stages of development, we will be transitioning from manual onboarding to automatic approval and onboarding for all eligible designers. We’ll also see the reintroduction of the full Shapeways Shops experience through Thangs with enhanced IP protection features and discoverability through its 3D model search engine.
We will have ongoing dialogue with our Shop Owner Council to make sure that creators shape the future of this marketplace and will be working with the group to make sure the Print on Demand feature serves creators and their customers alike. We’re very happy with the progress so far — and there’s plenty more to come!
Former Shapeways Shop owners can reconnect by joining our waitlist today.
Check out what’s already available to print on demand here.Subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date with the latest developments here.
