Site feature request: Tipping System

Feature Requests
1

Not a how to question, but a site feature request/ recommendation. Could you guys maybe implement into the pinshape site a tipping system? There are some really nice designs on the website that designers are giving away for free that I would have definitely paid for. Would be nice to give these designers a $1 or more tip in appreciation.

4 Likes
2

Thanks for the idea Tanya. We have talked about it before and figured it might clutter up the site experience a little, but if there is demand for it, we may reconsider.

Pinshape Community: Let us know if you’d use a tip option to tip your designers!

Nick

3

Yes, it would be an excellent idea.

4

I agree with Tanya. Some of these designs are really good, it would be nice to still have the ability to support the designer.

5

Thanks everyone, we appreciate the extra comments. If you have any ideas on how else we can make Pinshape helpful to you as designers, be sure to let us know!

6

I believe this would be a great idea. It would be good to have the option to tip on any free to download/stream design.

This would help designers who want to keep there designs free (or already offer them for free on other sites) to have the opportunity to be rewarded for there work.

Thanks,

Jason

7

Do you guys envision this tipping system being on each design or just available on the designer’s profile?

8

I see it being available on each design but I suppose you could set it up so it is available on both the design level and profile level. It would add more complexity to the implementation but overall, it shouldn’t be that difficult to achieve.

There is probably a thousand ways to go about it on the design side of things. You could set up an option (selectable at time of design creation) to ask for a tip after a download, maybe even make it a custom message. You could have this message just link to the tipping functionality (tip processing page) in the designers profile so to limit complexity. Or you can set it up to have two separate buttons such as “Download” and “Download & Leave Tip”.

Now that I think about it a bit, I really like how that first one sounds. That way you get both options to tip without two different processing methods. I wouldn’t mind hearing your ideas on this as well.

Thanks,

Jason

1 Like
9

Re-thinking this over I see two potential approaches to this subject.

Design based: set it up as a “pay what you want approach” for free designs. Buyer can choose to either download/ stream the file for free or if they wish enter an amount. If the buyer does end up paying for the model, profits are then what they would be if the model was sold at the inputted price. Example: buyer decides that the free model is worth 65 cents and pays 65 cent. Designer gets the usual standard 70% (50 cents) and pinshape gets it 30%. If the person pays nothing, design can still be downloaded/ streamed for free. Essentially this system lets the buyers value the free product themselves and designers can potentially make a better profit from these designs compared to designs with a set price.

This is a good read on the pay what you want system: Link

Profile based:
I would be so so on implementing something here. It is a good area to implement a generic tipping system to tip a designer for their work in general but having something more visible on the site would be better. A designer’s profile is something out of sight during a person’s experience on Pinshape and usually said person only visits a designer profile when a specific design strikes enough interest for the user to check out other designs the designer may have.

1 Like
10

Thanks @neilblue, @tanya_Wiesner. We appreciate the thoughts.

The article you linked to, Tanya, has some cool insights into the system for sure. It will definitely be something we discuss as we look for more ways to help both designers and 3D printer owners. Overall, I like the idea. The focus more on the design side of things probably makes sense. There are certainly some things we’d have to think through about the implementation, but nothing too complex to be solved.

1 Like
11

Just my 2 cents: I think the tipping system would be great at the point you upload photos of the design you made (ie. tipping for the ‘service’ you received). I think it’s pretty unlikely people would tip upfront for a free design - you don’t often know if the file is even good quality. However it is also often the case that I’ve printed someone else’s design and been really impressed with the result! When uploading photos of my print, I would certainly consider tipping the designer if this was a simple button as part of the upload process.

2 Likes
12

Thanks @edditive - this is a great idea. We’ll bring this up as a team and discuss it and see if we can incorporate into the platform at some point. Appreciate it.

13

Just making this active again… it is something that is working on other sites already now.

14

Thanks for the idea …!!!

15

Thanks for this idea, Now I am doing it with my blog Holi wishes.