About recent news regarding Shapeways ceasing operations and filing for bankruptcy…
We have been quite sad to learn about Shapeways sudden closure on the press.
We have not been able to get into contact with our VIP Rep or any other Shapeways support members since then.
We thus have no other info than what has already been published.
Here is what we can express so far following this situation (updated 2024-7-5 at 6:30pm):
- A good news first! This is not totally unexpected considering Shapeways was known to have financial issues since a while.
As such we were prepared since several years and we already have backup printing companies that we’ve tested and checked to have the same print quality.
This means that Shapeways bankruptcy will have minimal impacts on our future product offering and we will continue our business as usual for our Master Chassis kits sold through The Saber Armory or with our partners like Korbanth for example.
. - Next, considering Shapeways marketplace didn’t evolve since 2018 and was becoming far too time consuming for us to manage (and considering no actions were taken following our feedbacks for improvement), we were already planning this month to no longer add any new parts on Shapeways Marketplace, and sell directly full Master Chassis DIY kits through our new shop – The Kyber Temple.
We will propose material customisation option as well, and will provide custom quotes accordingly to our customers.
While this will take a bit more time in case of customizations, we are also very confident we’ll greatly simplify the ordering approach for most customers (one chassis item to buy instead of several parts to be listed, with option to include other parts and electronics).
. - Ok, new Master Chassis will be sold directly from our shop, but what about the 1300+ existing parts in Shapeways Marketplace?
This is a grey area for now and we’ll have to wait and see. For example, Shapeways assets could be bought by another company maintaining / rebranding the current marketplace.
In any cases, for those is need to purchase our old products, please contact us (and be patient, as we’ll do our best to help).
It is unlikely that we’ll recreate a new marketplace for old parts, however we have all the files and can process custom orders.
. - And regarding GOTH-3Designs website and all the links pointing to Shapeways?
We’ll have some good cleaning to do, which will likely take some time. Eventually, old unsupported chassis will be removed from the front end, but still available to reach through the search function (as all DIY instruction pages will remain available in the back end).
The Website will focus on showing new Master Chassis creation and their respective DIY instructions, while the part section will no point toward our own shop – The Kyber Temple.
. - What about current pending orders placed at Shapeways recently?
We have currently no information on that. While it is not possible to place a new order, current orders are still appearing in progress on Shapeways. We’ll have to wait and see.
In the event these orders won’t be fulfilled and even if we cannot compensate for Shapeways failure, we’ll do our best again to help our customers. Please contact us if needed.