It doesn’t make sense to a native English speaker either. GF use “shipping” to mean sending an email asking for your address, promising deliver in the next six weeks. It seems to be when they order it from the factory and your unit is only built after you reply. No other company uses the word shipping in this way.
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A solution in Europe? Another laser engraver? Can you tell me please?
I hope i’ll receive my Glowforge before the sons of my sons ( who are not yet being shipped, like our GF ) will die…
…
I get it! Glowforge overseas it’s a legendary creature, if i remember correctly I read about in Odyssey!
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Thanks for the math, it’s getting up there so that’s cool at least.
Yes, many of international customers search for alternatives in Europe.
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I continue to look forward to getting a glowforge. although less so with each delay. Your inability to reach self-determined deadlines is staggering.
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Like I posted on Instagram, it is to the point of being embarrassed when people ask me about the Glowforge and when I am going to finally get it. It is to the point also to where they just mock me doubt that I will ever really get it. My wife has pretty much written off the money as a loss. This is really starting to feel like the coolest cooler all over again.
I don’t want to have to ask for a refund because to be honest I won’t ever get the opportunity to buy something like this again, but I also don’t want to look at it all of the time and resent it because it was such a pain in the ass to finally get.
I’m sorry to be so negative but I have kept quiet for two years now. I have intentionally tried to avoid the forum and all of the excitement so that I would not get excited and just get bummed out even more.
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I still find the length of the delays staggering…
I can perhaps understand some of the delays given the very high numbers of pre-orders and setting up a high volume production line.
However the time to produce fully functional software is unbelievable… Even with all the hardware delays the software still does not offer all of the promised features.
Also the lack of understanding of the time to gain international approvals.
I believe it was deliberate strategy to promise the earth, gain a high number of pre-orders, prove a market existed and so gain venture capital.
Does it matter to GF if people cancel once they received VC injection.
IMHO as a disappointed international pre-orderer.
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I am glad to hear about the part where new software will be rolled out to old machines. Mine is working quite nicely, but upgrades will be welcome. Especially so that I can use every last square millimeter of my materials.
(I have a cousin who is now a retired goldsmith; he told me once that he used to screen apprentice candidates by handing them a piece of paper and asking them to write something down. If they wrote big letters dead center, they were less likely to be careful of more valuable sheets.)
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Not surprisingly, our referral credits just dropped from 7 to 3. Your FIFTH delay announcement just added $400 to our cost. And will necessitate paying for laser cutter use elsewhere. Again.
Let’s translate “you can always have a refund”: Thanks for letting us hold thousands of dollars for two years, based on a promise. We broke our promises, repeatedly, but won’t compensate you for any costs on your side. Or to simplify: “I got caught stealing, but I shouldn’t be prosecuted because I’m willing to put the money back.”
Or will you?
Will you reimburse us for renting laser cutter time elsewhere?
Will you maintain the referral credits that we received at the start, even if your broken promises scared off others?
Given how many times we’ve been mislead, I wonder if some of those referral credits were fake to begin with, to keep us on the hook. Or if they’re still real and just “disappeared” from our account.
I don’t want a refund. I want to be made whole.
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My auditors are going to be annoyed. I’m a school business official who pre-paid for 3 of these devices for my school with the understanding that it would be in before the end of calendar year 2015. Then it went past the end of the fiscal year (June 30), then past even the end of the next fiscal year. I was heartened when units started shipping and I told my auditors this and that we should have our units (or at least communication that they were en route) by the time they presented the audit. They are presenting next Wednesday and I’m not even sure I will have an answer by then of the (severely doubted before it even arrives) new schedule.
Honestly, if anyone says “well, you can get a refund”, I might just lose it. I want the machines to be in the classrooms. I don’t need money back that I can’t give a good answer for and can’t use in a comparable way.
I’m going to chalk it up to a lesson learned and never ever support anything again personally or professionally that is not already shipping. It’s not worth the angst and annoyance.
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I owe my husband a dinner out. Last summer we made a bet that I would get my GF in October. I said yes and he said no. He’s usually the optimistic one in our family, but I was sure that two years of waiting, of delayed gratification, would be long enough. He laughs at me when I bring up the topic of GF. So I guess that’s one benefit of this process, laughter being the best medicine for whatever.
I am a retired professor and because of that I see great potential for research here. These are some of the questions that could be answered: What kind of person (age, gender, occupation, income, etc.) actually waits this long for something he/she wants very much? How long can the wait be before throwing in the towel? How many times can promises be broken before he/she gives up. What is the optimum time interval between major announcements of delays to keep someone “hanging in there?” The results could be fascinating. I haven’t done any background research so perhaps these questions have already been answered. When I look back over the last two years, I have a suspicion that someone at GF already knew some of the answers. After all I’m still waiting.
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Shipping… Delayed… Screw it!
I’m excited about the update and even more EXCITED that I am getting my GlowForge SOON. Even a few weeks later than October. Lovin It!
BO-YAHAAAAA!!!
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You know how to take the order, you just don’t know how to deliver the order…
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Just so long as I have a unit in time to do some Christmas gift making… I think I’ll live. 
I think.
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Pittiful… endless delays. Apologies are meaningless at this point. Every delay update reads the same as well so I knew it was getting delayed the moment I started reading. To be fair, a delay was already obvious to most people. Showing me what others do with it is also worthless as it only heightens my frustration. At this point, I already know what it can do and seeing others play with a machine I bought so long ago and still don’t have is just annoying. Not sure why I would care what’s in the timeline update next week either as there’s no trust left anyways. Why would I believe THAT timeline?
Honestly, short of future tube replacement, which is necessary due to glowforge unique parts, I don’t know why I would ever do business with glowforge again. Really ready to get my product and have this be done.
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Pretty sure you mean months. “A few months later”. Not trying to be negative, but if history holds true and they tell you that it is going to be a couple of weeks, you’d need to factor that by four or six depending on when you initially ordered. That’s how I’ve been tapering my expectations to meet reality. If they tell me it will be two weeks, I am not going to expect it for at least eight.
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I am interested in alternative solution too. Please send me info in PM
Please share alternatives with me too.
You’re right on GF gaining VC money before the pre-orders, but still a lot of money raised afterwards…
Feb 2015. $1.3M
May 2015. $9M
Oct 2015. Pre-orders taken.
Aug 2016. $22M
I still think the deliberately misleading statements on the delivery timetable were to prove there was a latent demand for the product. With GF not caring if anyone cancels thereafter.
Otherwise, why do you think they put out such an unrealistic timetable? Or do you think it was incompetent planning?
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Who said anything about stealing?
Not me. 
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