Shipping and customs

I dont think you can “prevent” brokerage fees nor custom charges unless you underdeclare the sale price…

Oh, you for sure can. It involves setting up an agreement with the shipper, finding the charges out ahead of time, if applicable, and getting an agreement to pay them. Assuming this is categorized as an American product (not sure), there won’t be any customs charges for importing it to Canada thanks to NAFTA - there will be sales tax, however, and shippers love to screw recipients over on brokerage charges.

USPS / Canada Post tend to be the best / most honest about it, while UPS tends to be the worst.

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I went through the back and forth with Glowforge and eventually decided to ship to a drop box company right across the border. It’s a 2.5 hour drive, but for the $400 I’m saving I can buy a lot of supplies to burn through.

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Yeah, I am tempted to have it sent to my buddy’s PO Box in Niagara (I’m in London), but I need to talk to him and see what he thinks about importing a 2 thousand dollar machine for me :v

Wow, I just realized that ordering the air filter raises my price by a stunning $800. Five for the filter and an extra $300 for shipping. Does it really cost $300 to ship the filter?

So sorry for the slow reply here! Things have been nuts at Maker Faire. We agonized over the international shipping cost. Unfortunately, for the preorder campaign, we can’t do anything fancy (shipping crates over and distributing locally) so this is the very lowest we could charge. If you check the #'s on Fedex and DHL you’ll see we’re just passing the cost on, exactly as we’ll pay it. And as you note, you’ll have customs to pay as well.

There are a lot of clever solutions to bring down international shipping, but we just don’t have the resources yet to make that happen. After this is over and we shift to normal pricing, we’ll likely have retailers who can arrange it locally. Of course, at that point the price may go up, so it’s not clear if that’s an improvement.

I wish I had a better answer - this is the best we could do with what we have.

Yeah, the filter box dims out so the charge is by volume and not by weight. The shipping charge is close to that of the main unit, which is a bummer.

Good suggestion! Will try to get some video shot and posted when things settle a bit.

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That’s totally fair; I don’t want to sound like I’m busting your balls too hard, I think a lot of people are just surprised, is all. Looking forward to seeing the videos!

Agreed the shipping charges seem steep, Especially considering I am in BC Canada only 250 miles from Seattle . You do know that after waiting who knows how long for my order to ship that I will not require or expect same day delivery ? It is the $800 CAD shipping cost that put the pro model out of my price range. I really do hope you guys consider options for lowering shipping costs… If so I may upgrade my order…

If you ship large boxes often it isn’t a surprising price. We pay $290 to ship a normal sized 25 kilo box to the USA and that is a “promo” price. It isn’t a big box. The Glowforge with packing is twice the size of the box we ship and it is overweight. I’m assuming it’s insured as well, which we don’t do. The filter is almost as big as the main box, so two double size boxes, one over weight, for $1,200 to Thailand is dead on what it should be. Sure, it could go with a freight company for cheaper, but then I would need to hire a customs broker for a couple hundred bucks to get the box in the country. With UPS, they do all the paperwork and handle everything. Any problems with the paperwork and they fix it. Our last shipment the UPS lady spent two weeks filling out forms and talking to customs for no extra charge. A customs broker charges extra for that.

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Exactly right ladyheather - you’ve clearly been through this more than once!

Will there be any chance at requesting a shipper when it does ship to Canada? As mentioned by others, UPS tends to tack on enormous fees, whereas this rarely ever happens with FedEx…

Unfortunately no, not on a per-person basis, but that’s great feedback as we decide who we’re going to use.

Something else to consider: before they ship, figure out what the fees are going to be. This is something that you can work with your shipper (at least to Canada) to figure out so nobody is surprised when the knock at the door comes.

I live in Seattle. Is there anyway I can pickup my system at your office? (and avoid or reduce shipping?)

Thanks

They answer this in another thread; they aren’t going to have any of the lasers on site; instead wherever they’re being made (I’m guessing China?) they’ll get shipped to a distro center from there, and then out to customers.

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I’m one of the Europeans that bit the bullet and went for the pro model. Shipping came up to $954.

Total I spent on a pre-order + shipping
$4,849.00 (someone used my referral code)

As soon as it crosses my countries borders (Netherlands) I will be charged the following:

  • 21% taxes over purchase + shipping. ($1018,29)
  • Import tax
  • handling fee €11

As I’m buying this as a business I can get the 21% tax back over which is why I went ahead with it. But that’s the cost run down for just buying in NL. excluding having to buy a 230v - 110v transformer to make it turn on :smile:

Still very excited!

R.

What’s the weight of each item at the moment out of interest?

55 lbs for basic/pro
25 lbs for the filter, but that may wind up going up or down as we experiment with filter lifetime.