My Golden Ticket date arrived 5 days late, but I’ve gotten it. Optimistic about everyone’s next 90 days.
3 Likes
Gotcha. I am a Day 6 orderer. I can’t see any estimated ship date in my profile on the GF site. I see a ship date for the air filter of next march.
Maybe that means the Pro is shipping soon?
just checked in for my monthly checkup to a much delayed kick in the privates
now, i was feeling pretty bad that last time i checked (last month), glowforge had just told us that they didn’t have international certification for their units yet, and weren’t sure about their packaging surviving international air freight.
ok, another month or so delay maybe?(i ordered toward the end of the 30 day campaign)
well, now the other shoe has dropped. and we find out why international customers have always gotten the runaround: because we got dropped like the proverbial rock.
my account page finally displayed an estimated shipping schedule when i checked in this month. i admit it’s been 2 months or so since i tried it last (nothing shown in august)
Glowforge Pro Apr 09, 2018
i ordered toward the end of the 30 day campaign. not only will i not have my unit shipped this month, but glowforge never had the brass to tell us straight out, that when they said some noise about delays for international customers, they really meant get dropped to the end of the ENTIRE production line. so much for first come, first served. there’s currently NO Glowforge® Deliveries: Latest Schedule subnote for us international peons.
2 years of delays was bad enough, but this decision can’t have been made in the last few months. why the copulate was that not spelled out from day one? along with some estimate (even your terrible ones) of what our actual shipping delay was?
if i’d known that, i’d have taken the money back a year or so ago. now i’m not sure if it’s still available.
or if i’d take it. after all, what’s another 6 months at this point?
but at this point, my personal expectation for when i’ll see my glowforge is this time next year. if i’m lucky.
non-vulgar edit
2 Likes
Because that date in your profile is the date you should receive the email asking if you want your GF. You have already gotten that email, so that field is blank now. I know it’s confusing because they use the term shipping differently than you and I use it.
Many folks have said they haven’t gotten their tracking notices until the day before or the day they received their unit, so everyone recommends signing up for “MyUPS” That way you get a notice when a shipping doc is created for your address. (doesn’t work for business addresses though).
Gotcha, I got that email weeks ago, which is why the Proofgrade materials were sent. Hopefully, I will get another UPS notification soon. I got one for the PGMats.
Much appreciated.
You can get a refund at any time. You just have to email them to request a refund.
While I think International customers aren’t been treated fairly, I have backed a few kickstarters by individuals based in the UK, Australia, France, Japan, and Canada. In those cases, they seem to take care of their own country first. The US ends up being last or near the end. In one case, I was backer #2, but received mine almost a year later than the first ones sent out. None of those projects was in the same price range of the GF though.
1 Like
thanks, and i’m not cashing out this late in the game. that would be stupid.
emotionally rewarding, but stupid.
i do understand that national often gets shipped before international. the infuriating part is that we just get to learn that now. why wasn’t it S.P.E.L.L.E.D…O.U.T? i.e basic customer service, especially given the glowforge price tag.
i just needed to vent. now i get to go out there and explain to friends and family that yes, i just got run over by that laser engraver. again.
1 Like
Glowforge started posting " estimated shipping dates" because there was so many requests for it. They clearly state that it is only an estimate and may change in either direction.
As for canceling an order, you have that option right up until you respond to the “Do you want your Glowforge” email.
Just yesterday I cancelled my Air filter. Sent my email out aaround 10:45am and had a response from Rita at 10::30pm asking where to send the check.
2 Likes
I know. Everyone who hasn’t gotten their GFs yet is frustrated.
I think the real issue is that they sold 6x more units than they thought they would in the initial 30 day campaign. (One post from way back said they only expected to sell no more than 2,000 units and sold ended up selling over 12,000) They became a victim of their own success. If they only sold 2,000 I’d bet all GF units would have been shipped a while ago.
More than likely, they were not expecting anywhere near the number of international buyers they ended up with. They probably initially thought there would be a handful and that’s it.
Selling a heck of a lot more products than you think will slow down any progress. They had to ramp up a lot faster than they thought and make a lot of fast decisions and their suppliers had to ramp up faster than expected too. I’d bet their tube supplier and the injection molding company making the body are struggling to keep up (had to move GF production to another line or factory).
I feel being too successful is what leads to so many kickstarter failures. It’s a completely different ball game than most of the kickstarter creators signed up for.
I also wonder what the annual sales numbers are for the other laser manufacturers? Are other manufacturers selling 10,000 of units per year? (I have no idea, but for the price point and learning curve, I wouldn’t think so. If someone has ballpark numbers please share).
4 Likes
This “success” happened two years ago. My frustration is with the continual, but predicable delays. Also items that were promised two years ago still not in the software. The excuses are starting to wear thin. They should have not offered features or even sales to international buyers with so many unknown variables. When does a screw-up about the schedule become incompetence or deception? Shifting promises, and capabilities make the downside items like the cloud harder to swallow. Nowhere near cancelling, I just want it so bad and am tired of excuses and delays.
4 Likes
I don’t think so. International deliveries are waiting for certification, which either didn’t start soon enough or has failed requiring redesign. Either way two years is plenty long enough to get them, so there must have been a massive failure of project management.
Similarly even if the only made 2000 they still need to finish the design process and write the software. The only extra time needed to make 10000 is the production scaling. So probably 2000 would have taken longer to make anyway as they wouldn’t built as large a production line.
2 Likes
I said they didn’t think they would get more tan a handful of international buyers. They would have only had a few to disappoint.
and the hardware had to be finalized before a certification process could be started too.
very tedious.
1 Like
I’m actually beginning to wonder if maybe it’s the other way around: maybe it’s a mistake to keep hanging on just because I have hung on this long.
3 Likes
Hopefully these questions aren’t redundant on the thread, just skimmed a few hundred out of the 950 and didn’t see them addressed.
On our general account info is an estimated “shipping” date, which I’m guessing means that’s when the shipping process starts with the email requesting info? Is there a way to proactively give my shipping info rather than fret about whether the email is going to come or get snagged in junkmail or something? My date said 10/23/17, which today got moved to 10/26/17, I’ve been checking my email a lot more in anticipation, would be cool if I could email or fill in a form and have that step taken care of.
When that email comes, will it estimate the arrival of the unit and give you tracking (need to make plans to be home all day in that case)? Anyone know what carrier Glowforge uses fedex/UPS/DHL/some other freight carrier? Anyone gotten one in Florida yet that knows about how many days after the email the unit shows up?
If you can’t tell, a bit eager here, already ran out of projects to welcome her home…
11 Likes
As of this point, that hasn’t been an option. Make sure that hello@glowforge.com is in your safe-senders/whitelist for whatever email you’re using.
It will just give a 6-week window. Glowforge uses UPS for both the unit and the proofgrade material (separate shipments from separate locations). If you haven’t, it would be worthwhile to sign up for UPS MyChoice. In my experience, they’ve sent a snailmail (ironically enough) postcard to my address with a validation code. It will only work if you’re taking delivery at a residential address. Configure the options to notify you whenever a shipment is created for your address. That should give you about 5 business days heads up (cross country transit time).
Nice looking desk, by the way!
1 Like
If you consider the time you’ve waited as sunken cost, then it makes no difference how long you have already waited - only how long you would still have to wait should make a difference. But in this case, having had to wait a long time is a good indicator that you will probably have to wait much longer.
The referrals question should be posted in #problems-and-support.
I’m surprised by the number of people who need it spelled out. If I was ordering something like this from overseas, and the vast majority of orders were from the originating country, I’d expect to receive my order after most, if not all, of the orders from people in that country. As it stands now, there are overseas buyers who will receive their unit before I receive mine, and I live in the US, and I ordered during the crowdfunding campaign. “All things being equal,” they’re sending out units in the order they were purchased. One of the great inequalities that affect shipping is the extra requirements to ship to certain countries. I’m assuming there are packaging/shipping concerns and changes in addition to the legal issues with delivering these internationally. I understand overseas buyers paid more for shipping. I understand we all expected to receive these 2 years ago, or 1 year ago, or even by the end of October. At this point, we all realize we won’t receive anything when we expect it. The dates all get pushed back over and over. Any complaints about it are just a way to vent frustrations. We can’t change it. I fully expect to hear nothing in terms of my “Do you still want your Glowforge” email until June or later with the way things are going. I also expect there will be something wrong with my Glowforge when I do eventually get it. I figure maybe after having to return two or three of them, I might end up with one that works. This is the pessimistic/realistic view I need to take in order to deal with the constant delays. If I were an international buyer, I would’ve probably written the purchase off by now and just been pleasantly surprised if/when anything was delivered to me.
1 Like
I don’t really have much of a question.
Me: Did you cheat me, Glowforge?
Glowforge: Nah, trust us.
My referral DID confirm she is sure she used my link, but there is nothing I can do to prove it. So, my lesson learned.