Have you ever tried to order something as a member of an organisation? Very hard to do it in a single day in an organisation big enough to order multiple machines.
Yes or course it is possible that the MD of a big company ordered 200 on the first day and Glowforge have been churning out hundreds a month for the last two months, but I don’t think so.
Two years is extrapolation if the rate does not change. Of course I expect it to increase at some point but it is a simple statement of fact to say “At the current rate it will take two years.”
Either way, we have a sample, and it’s the best we have. When you don’t communicate, people speculate, that’s the way it works. There’s a way to fix that but it’s not my company and it’s not my choice to make. I’ve been part of other crowdfunding/pre-order projects that are more transparent about their shipping (e.g. up to #1234/23456) but Glowforge has been quite clear that they’re never going to tell us that. So we are left trying to extrapolate. People who are good with statistics could probably put some error bars on it and calculate the exact probability that shipments are or are not stalled.
All I know is it looks like I’m not getting a birthday present today. My happiness was at a local maximum when I saw the first post that a Pro e-mail went out, and has been slowly declining since, as it has become clear that was a single token order, so that “June 30: Glowforge Pro shipments start” would be technically correct. We’ve seen this cycle a few times: initial hope, gradual worry, and a dawning realization that hope is not a strategy and the numbers are telling a different story. There are 109 days left until “October 31: All Basic and Pro orders placed by 10/26/2015 shipped”. I’m not that great with math, but at the current rate of progress, only 1/4 of the ones we know about will be delivered by then. There’s probably some function involving “e” that would explain how non-linearly production would have to ramp up to change that, and how much less realistic it gets with each passing day of lost progress.
Huh. I didn’t start out intending to be so negative, I guess I’m more bummed out today than I thought.
Happy bday! I would not say it’s negative, you make very valid points and have every right to be dissapointed.
I’m not too much in a rush to get it as I have a bit of time left to get the workshop space setup, but fully understand other folks anxiousness.
Plus the longer it takes, the more features will be enabled…
I asked this question a couple times on the Facebook page and could not get a straight answer from whoever was responding. It also took them 3 days to respond.
For us Canadian backers that got in before the end of the campaign, is there even a vague idea of when our orders will start shipping. Pretty much at the end of my rope patience wise. If my wife had her way we would already have the refund.
I agree, your not necessarily being negative, just pragmatic with what info we have to base estimates from. I am happy that they are indeed shipping at least some, but I ordered day 2 and my euphoria has been very very tempered that its still looking like weeks or even a month plus before I get mine at this current rate.
More than once, and it’s not hard; here at least. =P
With my employer we only have to get any special signatures when we’re talking millions of dollars for an order.
Departments which order equipment have budgets and corporate credit card accounts for such things, and orders can be placed for new equipment in minutes when there’s a need. I’ve seen server racks filled with a single order after a resource bottleneck was identified.
This is a Fortune 500 company, tho, so I’ll admit that our definitions of what a “big enough” organization is could be different. =P
Over the past month, I have been thinking about upgrading from a Basic to a Pro. Last week, I contacted GF Customer Support to see if an upgrade to a Pro would delay the timing of when I might receive my GF.
On July 7, Danny responded as follows: "If you upgrade, your order date remains the same before and after your upgrade. If you upgrade to a Glowforge Pro, it would arrive between June 30 and November 30th. All things being equal, we ship based on your (original) order date.
We’ll be producing Pro units at a higher rate so we expect things to move quickly. We expect to complete Pro shipments at the same time as Basic shipments, if not sooner.
If your upgrade includes an Air Filter, then when your Glowforge Pro is ready, we’ll send an email to collect your shipping address. If you would like to wait until your Air Filter is ready, you can ask us to hold the shipment for you at that time. Air Filters will ship between September 30th and December 31st."
I don’t know of too many decision makers that would approve a large purchases of big ticket items from a crowd sourced campaign.
If my department made a large order of these, expecting them to arrive by the end of 2015 (the original date stated during the campaign), and the order was delayed, I’d be cancelling that order.
Businesses, large and small, cannot sit around for 2 years waiting for an item like this. They would be purchased for the purposes of generating revenue, and not many businesses would be happy with their capital tied up for this long. Especially because they can’t begin to depreciate that expense until they have the units in hand. The accountants/auditors would have a field day.
And, I can’t imagine any educational institution that would gamble money on a crowd source item. At least, an item with this large of a price tag. And, certainly, not to likely to gamble it on multiple units.
Oh, I totally agree with this. But I was only really specifically responding to Palmercr’s assertion that a “large enough” organization couldn’t functionally get a purchase order completed in day.
DEFINITELY. Larger Companies usually have the capital available that they typically will order existing items (items that are a part of a current inventory) and not ones that are still being developed. There are too many things that can go wrong as we’ve seen during this ride.
Perhaps the company I worked for was dysfunctional but one always had to get a purchase order number from the purchasing department. For capital items one would also need to get a signature from a director. Then payment would need to be made via accounts. So it was never quick to get anything, no matter how urgent it was.
In my experience selling 3D printers around the world it always take much longer if it was an organisation as they needed pro-former invoices and took time to pay. Individuals and sole traders could buy quickly and get dispatch the next day but as soon as it was an organisation with an accounts department it would typically take days.
it really depends on the company and the level of the manager who’s doing the order. my individual office managing principal can order something on his credit card up to $5k w/o anyone questioning him about it (unless he makes a whole lot of $5k purchases all together, that might raise an eyebrow). and as long as it fits in his annual budget.
I’m thinking there are three possibilities that explain the single Pro email that went out.
It went out by accident.
They are hand building one, to say they met the Pro shipping goal.
A tiny number of people got the email, and only one reported it. (I find this unlikely.)
I heard a batch of shipping notices for Basics went out last night. Pros shipping enmasse is the second to the largest milestone they have. The largest being all Campaign orders shipped.
that’s MY company’s limit. and for our office. others in my company have much higher limits. other companies may have much higher limits. we could easily have ordered 2 basics at $5k.
While it is possible that there are a few large quantity orders, I find it unlikely.
It’s also possible that GF is trolling the forum participants and those that put their name on the spreadsheet, and quietly shipping them by hundreds each day to people who don’t speak up. I also find that unlikely.
