Last April, we launched theAuthentise design stream提供设计师和内容所有者的法律d secure pipe to sell 3D designs to 3D printer owners. In almost a year working on it, we learned that intellectual property protection is not only about file sharing, but also about design integrity and market positioning. We also learned that, by using a pay-per-print model, prices can drop by 80 to 90% — which drives sales up and gets more premium content to the market, and makes new use cases available. More prints mean more printers and more material, leading to lower overall prices. That benefits the whole 3D printing ecosystem.
In this post, we want to share with 3D designers what we observed working with top design marketplaces likeCG Trader，，，，makershop，，，，针状，，，，and another dozen websites all over the world. We’ve had the chance to analyze and monitor the impact that different sales and pricing models have had on market demand. Here is what we found out about what people want to print, what people want to pay for, and what triggers a design sale.
Free vs. Paid
More often than not, when I’m talking aboutAuthentise，，，，I hear that “people don’t want to pay for models for 3D printing”. But to me, saying that people don’t want to pay for designs is like saying that people will not pay for music or books. I think it would be more accurate to say some people pay for music and for books, and some people don’t. But I can absolutely see how one can arrive at this conclusion.
Let’s say that you’re looking for a printable iPhone 6 case: nearly 80% of the models indexed by Yeggi are free. The availability of free models certainly helps shape the price perception of 3D printable designs. When something is widely available for free it becomes difficult to sell it, and many designers wonder “how can you market an original design on this landscape?”
Price perception on 3D printing
A good portion of price perception is shaped by branding and marketing, but it also has to do with the impression of how much a product costs in terms of its production.
我有一个示例来说明这一点。当数字书籍首次进入市场时，大多数人不想为它们付费，因为没有生产物理产品。当您为实体产品定价时，您必须考虑其开发，制造，运输，存储和税收。但是，对于数字产品，您不需要存储和运输，但是您确实需要其他所有内容。随着时间的流逝，我们学会了将作者，编辑和出版商的成本与生产成本分开，并开始为数字产品付款。
With 3D printing, the relationship is slightly more complex. The customer pays for a digital product that will, in fact, become a physical product, so the way the design value is communicated plays an important role on the market transaction between you and your customer.
在向公众传达设计工作价值时，要考虑的前两件事，无论他们在设计或3D打印方面有多知识，都应该是：
- Complexity and Originality
In 3D printing, complexity is free. Printing an ornate and complicated shape is not more costly than printing a simple block. Objects that could never previously be manufactured with traditional methods are now able to be easily printed.
If you, as a designer, can create something that clearly takes advantage of this fundamental 3D printing principle, it’s likely that your target market will perceive the value of your work hour. 3D printing is a powerful weapon of originality and can be used creatively to demonstrate a huge degree of differentiation. Make sure what you’re presenting is something that can not be found anywhere else and can not be manufactured with any other process.
- 复杂性和技巧
看看这个美丽的设计Fantasygraph，，，，at makershop. Even well-seasoned designers would need not only a very specific skill but also a significant hour investment to replicate it. Most people who own a printer can design something simple, and are less likely to pay for simple designs that they can create by themselves. On the other hand, they can also easily estimate how much skill and hours are needed to create a particular design, and, if you “show off” your skill, they will be more likely to pay the price tag, instead of investing their own time to reproduce it.
What sells?
但是实际卖什么？人们想购买和印刷什么？
理解3 d打印设计市场农业tunity, we need to first take a look at what people search for, and what they want to print — regardless of whether they are willing to pay.
您在下面看到的是Yeggi搜索的前20位，Yeggi是我们最喜欢的CAD搜索引擎之一。
如果您排除商标内容和人们不应该打印的内容，那么您仍然需要考虑很多选择。
现在，让我们讨论人们已经为之付出的代价。这是一张绘制的图表，其中包含由我们合作伙伴之一CG Trader提供的信息。
To make a clear distinction: consider the “Games & Toys” category to be chess sets, dices for role playing games, while a good example of “Miniatures” would be figurines. The category of “Hobby & DIY” includes parts for robots and quadcopters, and “Gadgets” would be phone cases and camera mounts.
What you see here is how many average sales a category has, compared to the marketplace average. This is how it works: The 1 point represents the marketplace overall average sales. The horizontal bars mark how the category of average sales relates to the marketplace overall. It means that every category ranking higher than the 1 point mark is a much better market opportunity than the average. “Hobby & DIY”, for example, sells twice as much as the marketplace average.
定价您的模型
有了更好的了解，什么影响了3D可打印型号的价格感知以及人们想要购买的东西，将更容易定价自己的型号；但是，重要的是要考虑一件事：心理价格障碍。
如果两个价格标签低于某个障碍，则客户可能对两者都有相似的反应。普通的在线商务价格障碍为$ 2，$ 5，$ 10，$ 20，$ 50和100美元。
For instance, $14.50 and $19.70 are both near the $20 barrier, so the prices would trigger a very similar reaction in a consumer’s mind. The same is probably also true for the price points of $28.90 and $39.90.
Here’s an example of how important it is to price your models within the price barrier of your category, which is also plotted with data from CG Trader:
“Jewelry” and “Hobby” are both categories above average sales and, not coincidentally, are priced and listed near the same $20 dollar barrier. But the category of “House Decor” is under average in sales and only slightly overpriced. Maybe a couple of dollars here might be able to push sales up? Probably. On the category of “Art”, where the difference between listing price and sales price is around $10, there should be great deals to be made since it is already a high selling category. Could it be a discrepancy between the quality expected and the price tag?
始终牢记设计的复杂性。客户正在寻找一包吸引人的价格和质量。价格范围为30至40美元的型号最常出售，但是如果您出售简单的3D型号，您的策略可能是将其定价低于10美元，达到1.5倍的销售额，而价格的价格为10-20美元至20美元的价格范围。
Selling more
After you have done your pricing homework, there are three more things you can do to ensure more sales:
- Build portfolio
CG Trader的数据表明，具有100至150款型号的设计师的售价比具有1至50款型号的设计师高1.7倍。即使设计师能够加班的型号数量，结果仍然与从较大投资组合开始的设计师也不相同。我们不确定这是否是因为较高数量的模型可能表明了卓越的经验和工作质量，但是显然，如果您能够提供100多个型号出售，那么您将最大程度地提高成功的机会。
- Preview images
您通常上传几张预览图像？5张图像？10也许？
According to CG Trader, models with 5 to 9 preview images sell 3 times more often than models with up to 4 preview images. If you are willing to put in real effort, models with 35 to 39 preview images sell 10 times more.
- 让客户测试您的工作
Designers that offer free models in their portfolio are likely to have 60% more sales. It is easy to understand that, before a big investment, customers would like to print something free of charge, to ensure they will be paying for quality work.
If you are not comfortable with giving away your file, even if it is offered for free, you can also use Authentise design stream to let your clients print this test drive, and take the opportunity to grab feedback about the prints to keep improving your work.
The learning cycle never ends. We are looking forward to one more year of design sales to discover what has changed and what has remained static. This is a very early market that is changing everyday as new technologies get released and popularized;even small changes can have a great impact on awareness and adoption.
We couldn’t be more excited to see design sales grow even more in 2015. Happy holidays!
