Should I Sell A Download Or A 3D Print?

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Are you wondering whether you should sell a download or a 3D Print? Let Tom and Tracy Hazzard give you clarity in this episode. They break down the ‘what’ that should come before your decision, weighing in on the speed, the complexity of printing, and the marketability of downloads versus printing. Read their criteria for selection that takes into consideration where the market is going to be in the near future.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Should I Sell A Download Or A 3D Print?

This is the Ask Us Anything segment. Our question is, should I sell my design through print on demand service or a file download only site? That’s a fair question.

It is. I think it depends on your what. If it’s something that is lengthy to print, it takes nineteen hours or all night long, maybe a download site makes more economic sense in terms of trying to sell it compared to other products that are on the market at the same price.

I tend to be of the opinion that you could sell it both places because different kinds of people are going to want to download a file and print it, than people who maybe don’t have a printer and looking to print a file and get it through Shapeways or something like that. Why are you going to use that service if you already have a printer? You need to establish a different kind of price for the download file than the print on demand.

I think that you know there is an opportunity to do both if market pricing is equal in a sense. If you can offer the file for an equal price or other things on the market, if it’s okay to do it for a $10 download and you don’t feel uncomfortable with that. If you feel like you’re on a site that is protecting you with copyright and all of those things. If you’re concerned about the release of your file happening, then maybe you need to stay on a print on demand.

There are some sites out there that are starting to do a better job of protecting designers in terms of copyright issues. That’s going to continue to improve.

Stay tuned on the next episode with Bobby Lin of My Local 3D Printing because this is the first time we’ve learned about real true cloud protection of designers’ designs.

A better marketplace for designers to sell their designs. You definitely want to check that out. There are some innovations and new things happening there that you’d be of interest.

In a sense, it’s both. It’s print on demand and file download. You also have to look at the marketability of your design. If it is economical to print it out and not going to be cost-effective or similar to other 3D print items. I’m not saying you have to compare your design to a standard plastic item that might be sold in Walmart or something like that. I’m saying value it for the market that you’re selling it into. If it is way beyond that because of how complex it is to print, then maybe it needs to be on a file download site. Also, materials. If it’s meant to be made in metal, you can’t put it on a file download. Say how many people have a metal printer?

Sell A 3D Print: A download site may make more economical sense in terms of trying to sell your 3D Product compared to other products that are on the market at the same price.

For the real high on metals, for sure few.

Think about your what, that’s always what we’re saying here.

We want to remind you Where the FFF is the 3D Print Color is our crowdfunded Kickstarter campaign trying to make some great colors a reality for filament for you to use on your FFF 3D printer.

If you’ve got one, then you might want some new colors. I’m sick of mine.

Please check it out. You can go to HazzDesign.com/getcolor. It will take you to that Kickstarter page.

While you’re on HazzDesign.com hit the Ask Us Anything tab up at the top and send us a voicemail with your question.

We’re getting some great questions from different parts of the world, but we’d like to know more from you.

We’d love to hear some more business questions.

Everybody’s trying to figure out how to do business with 3D printing. There have got to be some more questions out there. Always find us at HazzDesign.com and in social media we’re @HazzDesign just about everywhere. Thanks for reading. We’ll talk to you next time.

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