I’ve been making and selling my 3d works at local craft fairs and conventions for over two years now. It’s going okay. I work with my wife to resin-print and hand-paint each model.
To expand outside my local city, I’ve been wondering if I should post my simple STL models online for digital download on marketplaces, or, better yet, my website. That way, customers could print them and paint them if they are savvy with resin printing or DIY stuff.
I’ve been trying to do market research on “quirky earrings” or “simple models for miniature painting.” But not many concrete Google results pop up. Lots of Etsy results or Warhammer suggestions. So, it’s difficult to gauge interest or to compare to any existing business models out there. (Which could be a good thing or a bad thing.)
So, I’m just going to ask around here (and maybe on reddit) if there’s any interest in my models as digital products.
I’ll post some pictures here and link to my website. I welcome all thoughts and opinions on this!
You’ll probably do better actually selling and shipping your products on Etsy. Earrings are small enough to fit in a normal envelope so it will cost you less than a dollar total to ship a pair domestically.
Yeah, that’s a good suggestion. I do sell them physically on my website already. I did not choose Etsy because of horror stories I read online when starting out.
I’m more curious about the digital STL files though. How much interest do you think there is for 3D-printable earrings people can download and make at home?
As it requires a 3D printer + all the jewely hardware, i would estimate the market to be relatively small in relation to those who would purchase a finished product.
I would agree- I have no interest in buying a STL file, printing it, refining and finishing, and painting the paint when I could buy said finished product for <$15. 3D printing in my book is for things that don’t exist or things that would cost more to buy.
Note that I’m not just talking about money- my time is worth at a minimum $30 an hour, so if something would take a hour to print, refine, and paint, the cost of that product is $30 + material cost + whatever I paid for the STL. Small earrings like this… I can’t make that math work unless you can only buy them for $50, and I wouldn’t buy them at that price anyway
Hard to say how much interest there is, but there are lots of offerings on the supply side of things, if you look for earrings on sites like printables there’s 3,795 free models to browse through, cults3d has 55K results with a mixture of both paid and free models.
Feels a bit like a beer money kind of gig personally, i mean the paid ones i saw on cults3d where in between 80 cents and $5 or so, that still be a lot of models to sell to make rent, with lots of competition from the free segment there
Relatively small is the key phrase there. I think that small market is what I’m going after with this idea. Not trying to appeal to everyone. How much hobby painting do you do yourself? Any experience with miniatures?
That’s some good info. Thanks for doing a quick dig. I’m hoping to appeal to the people who want easy-to-process miniatures. Resin printing is a whole thing and I want the people who get these files to be painting as quickly as possible.
My intuition is leaning more on custom orders. Its hard to compete with mass manufacturing, but there’s always someone who wants some very oddly specific thing that they wont find anywhere and a portion of those might be willing to spend quite a bit for it.
If you can provide instructions for people who don’t know what they’re doing, yes
(I’m one of those people. I took mine to my college’s print shop and they had to walk me through what dimension changes I had to make for both projects)
I read a bit about the 3D printing market a while ago and kept coming up with ‘Don’t distribute your files’. There is apparently a HUGE problem with people taking your files, doing some minor modification (if even that), and then selling them as their own. You’re way better off selling the prints, not the files.
@Joseph has a really good point that between hardware, cleanup, and painting, the amount of labor involved in someone printing these for themselves isn’t worth it. I can definitely see a market for ready-to-paint earrings, though - that’s about the right amount of effort/investment to appeal to a large number of craft enthusiasts - no need to buy a box of 1000x little hooks for the 2x you need, no sanding/polishing/chemical baths, just a 3D canvas to paint however you see fit.
What you have been doing - selling at local markets - seems just about right to me. When selling at local markets your only competition is a handful of people who you probably know from past craft fairs. You don’t have to worry about hundreds of competitors browsing your most popular items and trying to imitate them. You don’t have to worry about them accusing you of taking their own ideas. You don’t have to worry about following fleeting trends. You don’t have to worry about hacking, shipping issues, or other nightmares. You just don’t have to worry. You can keep your venture small, stress-free, and fun. There’s a lot to be said for that!!!
If you want to expand your business, why not offer prints that appeal to a broader range of people? Right now you mainly appeal to…well, I’m guessing little girls and school teachers, and maybe some old ladies (I don’t mean to sound offensive - there’s nothing wrong with that). With a wider range, you might bring more people to your stall.
3D printing is ideal for that - rather than mass-producing a handful of items, you can produce a huge variety. And if you never sell a particular item, well, you only made a couple. You’ll also be less likely to get bored if you’re always working on something new.
@Jeacom I agree with you. I’ve done a handful of very specific projects for people who wanted something related to an inside joke with friends or a functional STL file they could print at home for others. I tend to charge more for those because it’s not usually a marketable thing I can re-sell at markets or on the site. It’s rewarding, but definitely more time intensive and it takes away from repeatable creations I can make.
@NeilJamesFrarey That’s a good suggestion. I hadn’t thought of targeting celebrities. Probably because I’m not thinking that big right now. But definitely something to consider as I grow the business. Thanks!
@edthomson92 Thanks for the compliment! I think that’s a good idea about instructions. I scale the models in Blender before exporting as STLs so there’s less complication when it comes to slicing the file. The earrings are usually consistently less than 2 cubic cm. We’ve found 2cm is about the maximum for cuteness and comfort.
@thoslos Yeah, I’ve read the same thing about file distribution. It keeps me from sharing these creations, even though I want others to have them. It’s a big internal conflict for me.
Ready-to-paint kits are definitely something my wife and I have been considering. We want to upgrade the resin we use before doing so. And that takes money. And that takes sales. So, we’re working on that idea, but it’s going to be while off yet. The resin we currently use is too brittle for me to feel comfortable encouraging customers to handle them. We’ll get there though!
Sounds like you have some experience selling at fairs because your thinking is in-line with mine. There’s not much competition for us because of the uniqueness of what we offer and all the trouble it takes to even make these. To @joseph 's point, not many people are willing to go through the resin printing process. I definitely don’t feel the urge to go big too fast with this business. Just trying to pay the bills and have fun. But if the demand catches on for whatever reason, I would like to be prepared somewhat for all the troubles that come with that.
Fair point about the market appeal. I’m looking to go deeper into the board gamer crowd and tabletop player market. Maybe making game pieces for game designers. Not trying to please generally everyone, per se. Just enough to bring in consistent income while also keeping the whole endeavor fun and engaging for myself.
Thanks everyone for all the feedback!!! This really helps!
