What is meant by a 3D marketplace
This is a website where designers, customers can buy and sell and share their digital 3D files to be printed by 3D printers. This is quite a new business and few businesses are actually fully involved in this lucrative venture. It has emerged as a good source of employment where individuals with a good sense of imagination can come up with digital files using a computer-aided design ( CAD) software while there are just sited in their office or homes. All these skills can be learned vie the internet. The marketplace where potential buyers meet the potential sellers is growing tremendously, and it is approximated that in 2013 it had a 100% growth rate compared to 2012. With the emergence of consumer 3D printers, individuals can produce certain designs at the comfort of their home and display these designs in the marketplace for interested buyers to make inquiries. These marketplaces contain the largest collections of printable designs of 3D objects.
How 3D market place works
These website enable individuals to share different files either for free of for a fee. Some of this websites have an inbuilt e-commerce ability to facilitate the transaction while others don’t have. These marketplace works by allowing designers to upload their designs files and depending on the website, users can either purchase these designs using the e-commerce channels. They can also download these designs for free if the website allows it. In other word, these marketplaces enable buyers and sellers to meet. It also facilitates the settlement of funds through various e-commerce methods such as Visa, Pay pal or Money gram. Other information that is contained in these websites includes the location of different 3D printing companies or shops. These shops benefits a lot from the market place as little advertisement is needed to get customers into their shops. Some marketplace also offers to print some of these designs on demand by contracting some 3D printing shops.
What are the different types of 3D market places
Though the main goal of these marketplaces is to ensure that potential sellers of printable digital file meets potential sellers of the same, different market places does it differently. Some of the markets places are more into offering a platform for sellers to showcase their designs and buyers to view the available designs. All this is on a free basis. Other market place undertakes to offer printing services of the various 3D printable files offered by the various designers. Other marketplace undertakes to do both: free platform for designers and buyers to meet, and to print 3D printable files on request by a customer. Other websites have an e-commerce capability to facilitate the transaction between the buyer and the seller. These marketplaces usually don’t offer printing services but contain a database of all registered 3D printing service providers for customers to choose from. They also contain contacts and location of these shops so that customers can refer to if they want to get in touch with them.