Today is a really exciting day at rc3Dprint as we have launched our new peer to peer marketplace, 'The Hanger'.
Anyone following for a while will have seen the design tutorials I put out in the last 12 months, to show people how to design a 3D printed plane from scratch in Fusion 360. Up until now if you want to share the designs you will have had to put them on Cults3D or similar where they are generally lost in a sea of tens of thousands of STL files. I thought, wouldn't it be great if we had a similar set up to Cults, but just for RC models. A place where people come to find new models to print and fly.
The functionality doesn't exist within my current website provider and whilst I would like to build it from the ground up, to begin with I have gone with Sharetribe, who specialise in offering this sort of marketplace. It turns out they don't quite have the functionality I needed so I have suspended this for now. But in the meantime we can build the Hanger up with models sold in my usual store.
As I see it the benefits over using Cults3D or Thingverse for your models are that people who visit my site are looking for 3D printed planes. Not benchy's, phone cases or watch stands. Having this marketplace will put the models right in front of the right audience as well as serving the recipient as they no longer have to trudge through thousands of listings. I regularly promote the 3D printed planes on my site which means, by default I will be promotingYOUR planes on the site too!
In the long run I would love to make it THE place to go for community made 3D printable planes.
To start with I haven't included the option for free downloads, why? Well, I have to pay a monthly fee to host the platform but also, my view of STL downloads is that they are more akin to laser cut kit parts than simple model plans, which are often freely available. I hope that by asking for a download fee the seller will consider the product they are uploading. There is a lot of junk available for free on the internet but even charging a token £1 for a download encourages the seller to make sure there is a level of functionality to the download.
So how does it work? The seller gets to set the price of their model when they contact me with their model. They should consider the model they are uploading, development time spent etc. When a buyer downloads the model they are automatically sent the selling fee minus a commission to us at the end of the month. This commission is currently set at 18% (Cults 3D is 20%) with a minimum listing commission of £0.80. This commission is to cover the banking charges and hosting of the marketplace.
I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback about this venture, and more importantly would love to see your own creations featured on the site.
Happy Flying,
Jon
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