So, I have run into a shockingly bad business practice, and I am hoping Glowforge doesn’t follow suit…
Will you guys be charging a “transfer fee” if we sell our GlowForges?
To be clear, I have no intention to sell mine, but I am buying a SLA 3d printer, and am finding that a full 1/3 of what I am paying a friend to buy it from him is to cover the “privilege” of selling it (or well to be specific, the ability for me to get email support).
So:
A) please don’t do that…
B) If you really, really have to, please provide a reasonable explanation and a price that matches actual costs and not a fictitious number designed to make some easy $$$ of a near zero cost operation.
LOL, @dan and the whole GF team has been nothing but exceptionally awesome with customer service, support and generally not being “that guy”… But its worth asking because, ya, I was shocked… Especially given how much SLA printers all have unique resin, and there for hook you to there product like razor blades…
But given the absurdity of the situation, I have to ask
Dan has said on these forums “if you buy it, it’s yours.” It sounds like what you’re buying from your friend is the remainder of a support contract. All of the support contracts I’ve ever been on the buying end of grant you direct access (in one or multiple forms) to technical support representatives who are obligated to fix your problem or if it cannot be fixed at least acknowledge it as a bug for future fix consideration. For some products, not having a support contract effectively renders inoperable.
Glowforge has only offered these forums, that I’m aware of, for tech support. Which should be fine considering 1) its capabilities (a laser that points at something) and 2) a primary sales feature of very easy to use software. These are the antithesis of something that needs a paid support contract.
Oh wow- that’s a great idea! Totally didn’t think of that! But now that you mention it…
No. I don’t like to promise things about the future (who knows, palace coup and I could be thrown out on my keister), but that seems like a terrible idea that we would never ever do.
@caribis2 I wish it was a support “contract” but its not… Well, kind of, life time support for the device (basic email support that is offered for the device for ever) has a $300 administrative transfer fee… The fee is to cover “accounting changes, and cost of a new user who will have new support questions”… So its ok if you forget how to use your 3d printer and contact them all the time, but if you sell it, they assume there printer is SOOO hard to use that the new user will eat up $300 worth of email support costs to them (the manufacture) and there for they need to charge for that new user’s time
…
