I’m in norcal and my first sighting was around Northridge in socal. They have a great display unfortunately, nobody in the store knew anything about it when I was there. Wish I’d had more time to be in that store. It might benefit glowforge to have a list of makers who agree to do demos or in store makes on the machines in store for credits towards materials.
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The link can be used to refer orders in the US, but can’t be used to refer orders to Hobbycraft, I’m afraid.
re: @alle 's question on the shop, I’m checking into some details for you and will get back shortly.
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Thank you for this information. It’s great to hear that you’re now selling in Hobbycraft. I am a frequent visitor there so it’s good to know I can get my hands on some Proofgrade materials if I ever wanted more in a hurry.
The updates you’ve provided to Rob are disappointing news, however. In the UK we miss out on the proofgrade offers (yet still get teased by the emails), extended warranty and now referral discounts. This is disincentivising for those in the UK who may be looking at purchasing a laser.
Hobbycraft only offer the Plus and Pro, so without the discount, many will be priced out. If the Glowforge will no longer be available to buy on your website does that mean the Basic is effectively discontinued in the UK? I am struggling to understand how a lot of this is good for customers. I really hope you can put some minds at rest!
Thank you
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Still looking into the above question about gift certificates, but:
Only ~10% of UK sales were basic (similar to the US) so it wasn’t part of Hobbycraft’s initial offering. We’re still discussing with them about whether they want to add it, I believe.
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That is an amazing statistic. I’ve never seen the need for a plus or pro, the basic has been just fine for all my needs.
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same here. i get the benefits of the pro, but it wasn’t enough for me to spend the difference. but i always thought the difference between the basic and the plus was pretty minimal compared to the difference in cost.
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Yeah, the operating temperature range isn’t that much better, and 5W on the tube. I don’t have the room for a Basic some days, certainly not enough fo feed long sheets 
The Plus was almost interesting for the 45W tube, but that stopped being a thing so nah.
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i kinda felt (and feel) like an extra 5w isn’t a huge deal. it’s 12.5% more power. if it was 60w, i’d feel differently. but 45 vs 40 is fairly minimal.
that small difference in temp range could be important, depending on where you keep your GF. mine, i run in my home office, which i keep in the low 70s, i think i’ve had a heat pause once in 5 years.
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How can the company without notice renege on a promise that:
" Once you’ve set your Glowforge up, you’ll get a referral code that you can share with your friends and family. It both saves them money and rewards you, too. (and if you think they’ll have questions, I would love it if you would give them my contact information so I can help them out, too)."
??? now YOU are saying it can only be used in the US???
I would have thought that a company such as Glowforge would honour its promise, i only bought mine in June and if i knew then what i know now i probably would not of bought from GF.
Personally I think its poor behaviour of the company to suddenly switch to selling from a retailer and ignore the early UK forgers who went to significant lengths to help people become forgers, thus improving the appeal and technical support for your product. I doubt that anyone at Hobbycraft will be providing that support.
Also why is online premium access now £500 a year? This is completely unaffordable for most users and doesn’t seem to offer enough value for money to support the cost. Can you please explain why there is such a massive jump?
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I have to admit, the news isn’t good to my ears.
UK Customers, like myself, who purchased from your website have been sat patiently waiting for things to get better.
I love my machine but I’m extremely disappointed in you as a company and now this has made it worse.
The proof grade is very expensive so a lot of us no longer purchase it, the premium has now shot up in cost and now we are in the dark as to where any replacement machines will be coming from if you aren’t a hobbycraft customer.
More clarification is needed Dan I’m afraid.
We thought bigger and better things were coming our way and this is steps backwards. We thought we were going to get more, not less.
I’ve emailed in to ask questions to only receive a very blanket response.
Maybe you will find the courtesy in answering.
Apologies if this sounds sharp but my disappointment must show. It’s like you now only bother about Hobbycraft buyers… not us who DID purchase from your website!
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Thanks to Rob for posing so many poignant questions for the UK users.
As a UK user a big factor in subscribing to premium service was the discount on proofgrade materials, as others have said we in the UK miss out on the US only sales.
Could you clarify whether UK premium users no longer have access to discounted proofgrade?
Thanks
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Hi Dan,
Can i ask about the 20% discount that is offered against proofgrade material if you are a Premium subscriber. If you are going to only offer proofgrade material via Hobbycraft (as appears by your initial message) will we no longer be able to make use of this discount? Is this another disadvantage of being a current UK owner? 
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I wish the support had improved. I’m over 48 hours in and have so far found out you’ve sold me a stolen machine that you’ve bricked. The problem is that support is only PST hours, and so a rely after midnight just delays getting something fixed for me as the UK is busy sleeping usually.
I’m currently on the fence for asking for a full refund, as this experience of buying direct has been awful! I thought “pro” may at least offer better support.
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Sorry for the delay in answering! If you have a Glowforge gift card you’d like to use, reach out to our Glowforge support team (or we can say submit a request) and let them know what you’d like to order, and they can put the order through for you and send you an invoice where you can enter your gift card. You can also use your Glowforge gift card to subscribe to Glowforge Premium or to buy digital assets from the Glowforge catalog.
We’ll continue to provide all technical support. Right now, the majority of our support requests are turned around in less than 8 hours - including requests for UK support.
Would you mind sharing where you’re seeing that? We haven’t changed the pricing since launch, so I’d like to double check it for you.
Yes, what questions can I answer for you?
You are correct, and that’s no longer available. I apologize. If you no longer want Premium as a result, please email support, link to this post, and let them know you’d like to cancel your Premium subscription. We’ll cancel, and also refund the previous month as well.
Our sales were always specific to countries - we have never offered the same discounts in the UK as the US. That will continue to be true, and we’ll support Hobbycraft in running promotional discounts.
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There are questions in my actual comment. You don’t seem to appreciate the concerns we have here or seem to care about your UK customers. I, as a NON HOBBYCRAFT customer want to know where I stand if my machine messes up again or how just American support can close an issue we have within 24hrs without us actually having to not sleep? Benoit, Lauri and team were very very helpful. Yes as you can see, I know them by name as they’ve had to help with some issues I’ve had from the get-go.
And I’d like to add in a comment on Facebook group owners too. I am a member of Rob Fullers group and by by god you own that man a lot. Have you even bothered to see what his group does for Glowforge or how many flame he puts out for you before your staff get many angry emails? I don’t think you have and would appreciate it if you did and give him the acknowledgement he deserves please.
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They probably remove it to keep it from being stolen.
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You’ll receive service and support from Glowforge, not hobbycraft. Right now we’re averaging less than 12 hour turnaround for urgent issues from UK (and US) customers. In many cases, that does mean we can solve it in 24 hours, although more complex cases may take longer.
Rob’s wonderful, and I agree completely!
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I wish this was true. It took 3 days to get a resolution for the stolen machine that I bought from your website. And I’m currently waiting for a replacement delivery…
You misunderstood. It took 3 days to get the issued resolved and the replacement ordered. That’s 72 hours.