I’ve been notified mine won’t ship until April of 2018. I’ve been checking my email every morning for weeks hoping to be told it’s on its way only to find out I have at least another 6 months. I am very disappointed to say the least.
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Well, my GF is scheduled to be shipped to me later than expected. I am not angry, nor even frustrated about it. But I am disappointed and a little confused. And I have to admit, it was very disconcerting reading through some of the blowback last night on the forums about the new delays. Discouraging.
I have to hand to @dan for hanging in there, through some brutal personal attacks, burning the midnight oil to read and respond to as many of the posts as he could, trying to help clarify things a bit. I am sure that was tough, but he understood it was something he needed to do.
I am hopeful when things get sorted out in their scheduling system and it gets corrected to show I am waiting for a Pro and not a Basic that my date might move up. But no matter what the forecast date is, I hope that this time it is real and at worst conservative.
I have seen people create such wonderful things with their GF’s, and I still anxiously await my own…
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I feel like everyone else, I’m sure we all expected a delay from the rate of the “Orders placed on Day X now shipping”. The rate was moving too slow to be close to hitingt your deadline. However, I was hoping that the delay would be, at most, an additional month.
Being from Santa Rosa, CA my week has been chaotic, I was hoping for any good news, sadly you did not provide that. (however, unfair to expect that, but I was optimistic)
My family is safe, and maybe with all that is going on, I may be more prone to being more emotional. But these delays are ridiculous. I hope the dates you sent out were the LATEST date you think you might send the address email, because I would much rather be told I’m getting my GF earlier, rather than constantly being told I will get it and then being told “another 6 months”.
I know nothing will change from us expressing our frustration, But I guess I didn’t want to just remain silent and think “Typical Glowforge”
I have always commended your company’s communication and community engagement, but the delivery of the product leaves much to be desired. I only hope that you have been able to learn from this experience to avoid it in the future.
I will now attempt to inject a bit of humor with a gif
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The thing I learned from this experience - I will never participate in internet crowdfunding again.
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Guess what, after today all the ones on the list behind me will be getting their units earlier than they thought. I’d rather buy later at a higher price than get these funny forecasts (+6weeks or whatever).
I’m getting my money back. Sorry Glowforge, too many broken promises.
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Can’t wait to give people there Christmas presents I was going to make them back in 2015 in January of 2018…I hate to be bitter but I might have a better chance of getting that dremel laser engraver before this thing
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@dan Unlike a lot of people here, I only bought my glowforge recently in June this year. However, at the time you were advertising that my Glowforge would be shipped within two months. I did not appreciate that I was going to be waiting long at all for this when I gave you my money. As far as I could tell, this was a real product that was shipping already, and had a reasonable delivery time.
I then got access to the forums and realised that the August shipping seemed unlikely for a brand new customer. And, sure enough a week or two later I got an email telling me 'When you ordered, both our website and your confirmation email had an incorrect delivery date. ’ and it would actually be November.
I am now expecting it 21st March 2018…
This was a significant investment for me, and I had no indication that I wouldn’t be able to start recouping my cost by using it shortly.
What actually annoys me the most, is that if I look at the ‘buy a Glowforge’ just now, it actually says that it will be shipped in 1 month! This is truly scandalous. It makes me feel tricked and lied to. And makes me feel very much feel like you are deliberately lying to entice in new customers while knowing for sure that they are more likely to have to wait at least 8 months.
I would expect you and your team to update your website as a matter of priority so that you are not lying.
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Yeah, when im looking just now it still says 1 month! it seems like an outrageous lie.
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isn’t there a lawsuit you Americans can throw together?
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Yes, this is probably one of the main learnings for the next book/startup. While trying to prove broader demand for something that has been a niche tool, you probably have to focus on succeeding at home before opening up to international orders. And assume that you can extrapolate international demand from domestic run rate.
Since presumably you want to avoid staffing reduction at the end, you’ll not want to parallelize beyond the sustainable levels. Also, finding and paying good engineers is harder than it sounds.
In retrospect, it’s a good thing Dan was so passionate about how cool a tool a laser cutter can be in the hands of people that may not know they want one. Without that optimism and hope, the realistic view may have killed it before it got started.
I hope they can make it over these last bumps and cancellations and get into the sustainable run rate portion of software development. Still a bunch of unfinished features from launch. Makes me kinda want to volunteer to be a software engineer on the project. There’s fun stuff to work on still and lots of low hanging fruit that would be pretty satisfying to fix.
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I think this is a very valid statement. I can’t tell you how frustrated I get looking at/sourcing retail boxes, materials, etc. at a significantly smaller scale than Glowforge and in a significantly smaller time-frame.
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I’ve not too worried about the delays but I am much more concerned that we are promised dates that seem to be “on track” until the date gets very close and then it’s all suddenly gets put back again.
To me this is very poor communications and I rather have more regular updates of what’s REALLY going on. It would also have been nice that once you started shipping that you gave numbers and % of how many have been shipped which would help give confidence to your customers that they are really getting out to them. I feel like we are being kept in the dark.
With the expectation that I was REALLY going to get it this time and in less than 5 weeks and this morning I was all excited as I get the email saying to login to check my delivery date to find that “ow no!” it’s going to another 4 months….
So changing subject for a second. (You will see why I’m going in a sec…)
12th January 2016 investing $3949.00 for both Glowforge Basic and Air Filter. This is what I currently have as shipping dates:-
Glowforge Basic Mar 14, 2018
Air Filter May 27, 2018
By the time I receive my Glowforge I would have lost around $468 on possible interest in the bank.
Also due to the exchange rate changes my shipping ($954) is going to increase to the equivalent of another $140.
On top of that I still have to include import duties which so far I have estimated as around $819 (if I have that correct – it could be more)
In Total I would be paying around $5376.
With yet another unexpected delay I started looking around and within 10 minutes found this:-
Total cost is $2446 (with shipping) and can have delivered to me in under a month. It might not be as intelligent and also not as attractive of a device (I’ll put it in the garage instead of the house but hey!) but it meets the requirements and also a more powerful laser. OK I would lose out on some of the other benefits by cancelling but I don’t think the equate to the savings I would get by going this approach.
So please tell me this:
• How realistic is the actual delivery date seeing this is I think the 3rd promise of an expected date
• What actual benefits am I going to get that would standard out vs the product above. To be honest I rather have a device that is NOT connected to the internet and just local…
• How can you ensure that if there are any problems during warranty period that I am not going to be paying more money on duties, shipping seeing I am based in the UK
• When the laser needs to be replaced are you going to have a UK presence where I could order direct vs import
I really would like to know if I can still l justify this cost when I can find something far cheaper out there and can get far quicker.
Also as exchange rates have changed so much between the US and the UK I believe If I ask for a refund I would actually get about an extra $1000 back which would be a nice little sum to assist with buying the alternative.
So please tell me if I am doing the right thing here by waiting? Otherwise I think I am out as the numbers don’t add up in me staying anymore…
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You have been working on this for 2 years and you haven’t got certificates for all of the countries, for two years you have know which countries these going to be shipping to.
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they will never reply to intl costumers… tbh.
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same here…
I’ve been waiting for nearly 2 years now vs your 4 months yet our actual expected shipping date is only 1 week apart. That does not compute that they can squeeze in that many orders between 2 years and 4 months into a one week shipping period.
That being said they could be making US shipping’s priority over other country’s and I’m based in the UK. If that’s the case then that would be very unfair as I’ve been helping funding this project for that long.
With Halloween just around the corner, they just might.
I have to ask as 6% range interest rates are being thrown around to justify pique. Is there a reputable insured bank anywhere in this world that is offering 6% true interest on CDs or regular deposits?
I’d like to know so my school district can get in on that. We’re not making much on our deposits right now.
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nah that would be more like a christmas miracle …
Ah, Christmas… the time of year when Santa flies over your head.