Web Highlights: Shapeways
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Web Highlights is an ongoing series showcasing some of the brightest and most useful destinations online, celebrating the imaginative minds that come together in web development to make the internet a more interesting place.
This week’s highlight is Shapeways, a New York based startup that literally sells anything, by using 3D printing to turn raw materials into original products.
The digital marketplace is at a turning point. Research firm Futuresource Consulting has forecasted that the 3D printing industry will be worth $7.5 billion dollars by 2018, and as companies like Shapeways continue to make 3D printing accessible to the masses online, more and more customers will opt to have their ideal product created rather than search for the closest compromise.
Unbarring the gate and connecting its customers directly to the possibilities of 3D printing, Shapeways has lined its shelves with a vast array of unconventional products. By uploading your design to the site’s integrated 3D modeling platform, you can literally see your inspiration made reality, and Shapeways doesn’t stop there. Customers who aren’t confident in their artistic side can browse a gorgeous stock of highly detailed products designed by other users, or the entire collection of their favourite seller via built in user shops.
In that sense, the functionality of Shapeways is threefold: Users can shop from a selection of high quality printed objects ranging from jewellery to automotive parts, upload 3D designs to bring ideas to life using one of many materials, or sell their designs in the Shapeways marketplace. From precious metals and stainless steel to sandstone and plastic, anything can be found, made, or sold, when the limit is your imagination can conjure up.
Visually, the site is a delight. Sure, the design is clean and the navigation feels intuitive, but the champions here are the products. It’s likely you’ll find yourself browsing through all sorts of bizarre and colourful creations before you even remember why you came to the site in the first place - and that’s a good thing. These are the winning conditions that make Shapeways an eCommerce success story.
Shapeways has positioned themselves in a unique space: every product they showcase is one you’ve never seen before, and there’s something here for everyone. If you don’t see something you want to buy, you’ll think of something you want to make.
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