Satisfied with my last experience shopping at Shapeways, I placed another order a few weeks ago. Pretty Small Things had just added some office type furniture to their shop including a file cabinet, which is an item I’d been wanting for the Rosedale’s home office. While I was at it I also ordered an industry stool and rolling desk to go under the window, and a few other pieces to take advantage of the flat rate shipping.

The order had an estimated shipping date of March 25, which came and went. When you log into your account and view your order, Shapeways shows you each item’s manufacturing status (Processing, In Production, and Complete). I kept an eye on it for a couple of days and noticed that the industry stool and file cabinet kept going from “in production” back to “processing”. On Monday I emailed to ask what was up and I got a response the next day saying that the stool had finally been successfully printed after several attempts, but the file cabinet would have to be canceled since it kept breaking. :(

The customer service rep did say that if the designer uploaded a new version of the file I’d be able to reorder it. Like last time, they asked if I wanted a credit or a refund through PayPal. With no new version of the file available, I opted for the refund. They apologized for the inconvenience and immediately shipped out the rest of my items.

The next day I got an email from Pretty Small Things letting me know that there was a new version of the file cabinet available. Argh! I emailed Shapeways again and asked if they’d waive shipping so I could reorder. And they did! One day later, my original order showed up — they’d upgraded it to overnight delivery. Once again: excellent customer service. I’ve placed my re-order for the file cabinet (plus a Windsor settee I was on the fence about ordering last time) and those are now showing as “in production”. Fingers firmly crossed, since that file cabinet was what I really wanted in the first place!

In the meantime, here are the rest of the goodies. The big splurge was this Eames chair (which comes with a matching ottoman). This is printed in color, and although the coarse texture isn’t quite right for the “wood” or the “metal” base, I think it makes the white part look convincingly like upholstery.

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