Everyone gets status update emails, yeah? Or really, those that do are the population you’re claiming is intentionally deceived. Because if someone doesn’t get the status update or read the forum, then they’re missing all the deceptions. But they outlined things pretty clearly in the last update.
“We’re now shipping US Basic orders placed on Day 4 of the preorder campaign. That means [if you’re pre-day 4, all things equal]… we should have already emailed you about receiving your shipment.”
That indicates that the first part of “shipping as defined by glowforge” is getting an email. And that email presumably gives you some additional info about your shipment. Ok, cool. So what’s in the email? I haven’t received one, so maybe the intentional deception is in there?
Was this explained to the general public when they announced they were shipping in May at the BAMF? They sold machines on the back of that and people cancelled when they found out the truth.
I have no idea what was said to whom by whom at a place I did not go.
I would be interested in knowing if people refunded over screwy definitions amounting to a few weeks, or if people refunded because they didn’t realize “shipping now” didn’t mean their machine was shipping now, and that there was a 2ish year’s worth of waitlist between them and their machine.
That’s all speculation, of course. They could have been promised unicorns would overnight it to them for all I know.
I dont know what emails youre refering to. I only get the “were sorry” emails. Maybe others get all these emails? I see the updates in the forum but they’ve only recently begun admitting what shipping meant in the updates. And only after being questioned a lot about it. Still, lots of people don’t see the updates. That’s evident by all the times a thread is started asking questions about things that were covered months ago in the updates. Those people who only occasionally visit likely only see the banner. Which uses a word in a way that no other company does and seeing that may make them think things are going better than they are. (I.e. they may stick it out rather than cancel)
I didn’t go but there was a video published where I saw Dan saying they were now shipping. Simultaneously a few emails were sent to a few people otherwise the whole forum would have “oh no they aren’t”. Then after telling a big fat lie on camera they try to redefine the English language to make it true.
They also told new customers at the show they would get machines ordered then in August. Then a few days later they announce a three month delay. One or two of the new customers mentioned on this forum that they cancelled because of that.
The only way they would have machines sitting around would be if several thousand people said, “No.”
I believe that what @dan has described was a simplified version of what really happens. The overall sequence includes emailing the customer for confirmation and delivery info, and the building, testing and dispatching of the machine.
In rough terms, the timing probably has a batch of emails going out before any machines of that batch are built, but I would be very, extremely, surprised if there is any delay on manufacturing of a unit just because there isn’t a destination for it yet. I would even be surprised if a customer is assigned a particular serial number until the delivery label generated (at the earliest) or the label is placed on the box.
I believe also that @dan was trying to make this point himself by satirically describing the factory process as one where he was sitting around the factory waiting for a whistle to blow to start building one haphazardly. That just doesn’t happen in any kind of manufacturing. That only happens in custom craftwork.
The Air filter is not supposed to ship until December. I don’t believe they will send models internationally that should have an air filter - without it. Which means that any international orders with filters won’t be shipped until the air filters are ready, which probably means 2018 delivery - even if you are in the first 30 days.
This is just speculation of course, but I think it’s within reason.
Yes but if you are trying to send out 10000 machines ASAP why don’t you just build continuously, know roughly how many will be available for dispatch tomorrow and email enough customers to get enough yeses to match? Then do roughly next day dispatch.
The reason seems to be they are still evolving the design and building small batches and each customer has to agree to the known defects in those batches. Or they have a cashflow problem. Or some other bizarre reason that means they have to redefine shipping to mean something no other company in the world uses.
It is just the same as when I bought my CNC router. It was built to order and then they shipped it. They didn’t tell me it was shipped until it actually was.
It’s typical for a company to notify their customers of shipment via email. Saying “you should have received an email because we’re shipping” in no way conveys “we consider sending out emails to be sufficient action to claim that we’re shipping”.
If I order something from Amazon and it turns out the item is backordered, and I call them up to ask what’s going on, they might say “oh, we found out that that item is backordered, you should have received an email”. No intelligent person, fluent in English, would interpret that to mean “oh, I guess Amazon now classifies sending out emails as ‘shipping’”.
My point is that they are building as quickly as they can. That may be slowed down by change orders, but not by getting confirmation from customers.
But they need to stay ahead of the manufacturing so that there are not delays between finishing QA/calibration and having UPS pick them up. When they send out a shipping email, they don’t know whether the person will respond quickly, or perhaps 29 days later.
It’s a process that takes a variable amount of time, and so they are giving it a 6 week window so they can deal with the rest of the logistics.
This is a false analogy. That was the process that company used. If they were “building to order” then it’s Not the same as what Glowforge is doing. Factories like Flex do not build to order, nor do they allow valuable production space and equipment to be idle without a good (likely paid-for) reason.
Most people reply to the email within hours so you don’t need to allow six weeks. Just send out emails until you have enough for the next day’s output. If somebody doesn’t reply for two weeks it doesn’t matter, when they do you put them to the head of the queue and if you then have too many you push one of the later ones back a day.
I’m glad to think that they’re building as quickly as they can. However, in the real, outside-Glowforge world only one of these things counts as shipping. My point is it’s intentionally misleading to call “building” “shipping,” to call “QA/calibration” “shipping,” etc. It makes me wonder why they’re being intentionally misleading to use a completely non-standard definition of the word “shipping.” What are they trying to cover up?
I make and sell products on Etsy that sometimes have a 2-3 week lead time depending on material availability and my schedule. If I told someone who bought one that I was shipping it today, when what I’d really done was only go out to the workshop to make sure I had enough wood on hand and it was still a 2 week process of construction and finishing, I would be justifiably reamed.
I am just wondering what are we all going to argue about after everyone has received their glowforge? We really need to start finding some new material or else this community will be a deadzone in a few weeks.
I’ll start some potential controversy:
Cilantro is absolutely delicious and should be used in more places.
