I wanted to make this it’s own post as I am incredibly frustrated by @dan (IMHO) misleading definition of shipping. According to the banner at the top, Glowforge is shipping “Day 9” for Basic and “Day 1” for pro. Yet shipping doesn’t mean your unit is out the door, no it means they have sent an email to you to collect your mailing address. To put this into perspective, by Dan’s definition, Glowforge has been “Shipping” since day 1, since they have been collecting mailing addresses.
I understand that now is different since some orders are being fulfilled, but let’s take a closer look at that…
According to the handy dandy google sheet, no one past “Day 2” has received their basic unit. If I had to guess, the difference between “Day 2” of Basic should be in the range of at least a thousand or so machines.
It’s time that @dan and company start being open and honest with us. No more half truths, misleading statements, apologies and offers for refunds. Just be honest… Where are you actually at on shipping and will everyone have their units, in their hands by end of Oct for the first 30 day customers?
The online google sheet is a guide, not a definitive ledger.
It is in no way affiliated with and is just something people use to get an idea of where things are at with deliveries.
There are certainly Pro Units that have been delivered. There are multiple threads from Pro users
I agree that the definition of shipping is dodgy…
…but this is an assumption too far.
Like it or not says that since the acceptance of the e-mail means that you WILL get your forge thus it is as good as shipped. If your machine is not ready for you to accept then you do not and cannot get this e-mail.
Maybe it is, i think so, others do too… but it is Dan’s business and he has chosen to not release that information, we have no claim on him to do so.
Ignore my error on the pro units, my sheet was screwed up. Fixed that in the original post.
You missed the humor there friend.
I disagree with your premise. Ask yourself this question, would you let your cell phone provider or cable get away with doing something similar? How about Amazon or Best Buy?
Just because Glowforge is a startup, doesn’t mean they should be open and honest. Intentionally misleading statements impact the trust the community has in the company. Don’t forget @dan didn’t want to reveal anything, including monthly updates until the community got up in arms. The only reasons I can see to not be upfront about the shipping is they are trying to cover up a delay, give themselves more buffer, not lose sales, etc. None of those reasons are in the best interest of the community.
Having transparency and honesty shouldn’t be something we should have to ask for…
No but it definitely shows there are people on day 3 that haven’t received basics, so it is definitely the case they haven’t shipped all day three orders and most likely they only just started them. The same logic applies to day 1 and pros.
With over 400 entries it will be a pretty good indication of what is going on. I think with cancellations there are probably only about 8000 customers left, so a 5% sample is quiet large and gets bigger most days unlike dispatches.
I mean, it is marketing/PR spin… Most of us realize this (I’m sure everyone in this thread does at least).
It is likely a product of a desire to get Glowforges delivered and the reality that the Glowforge was not completely ready but was really within sight of shipping.
Then doubling-down on the ad-hoc definition of ‘shipping’ I am guessing was compounded by a strong desire to avoid backlash for not hitting the stated shipping goals.
Here is my guess, in the last couple of weeks of October we will see a complete flood of emails followed by about 4 to 5 weeks of most people waiting to receive units. Then in the last one/two weeks, we will see a ton ship, and on the last day before we will see a TON get one-day shipped. This will likely be followed up by a meaningful number people getting them late and an apology and GF pointing to how hard they tried to hit their mark.
(Don’t take that prediction too seriously)
I am mostly putting it there with the hope of being proven wrong (and maybe inspiring certain people to make me wrong!)
That would be great it it happened but it looks more likely we will get another “we failed” and another delay. As time goes on they would need to step up production higher and higher to meet the target but we have never seen production anywhere near the rate needed. The closer it gets to Nov with no ramp up the less likely it is they will make a quantum leap.
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According to the handy dandy google sheet, no one past “Day 2” has received their basic unit. If I had to guess, the difference between “Day 2” of Basic should be in the range of at least a thousand or so machines.
[/quote]
A huge assumption (and you know what they say about assuming) is that the spreadsheet bears any relationship to the true picture of what is going on in the real world. There are an unknown number of folks in various stages of email receipt and shipping/reception of their GF who have not placed any info onto that spreadsheet…
There is no evidence the spreadsheet doesn’t reflect reality. Are all the people on day three that are waiting for dispatch fictitious? Did they all forget to update the sheet? If not GF has certainly not dispatched all the day three basics yet.
Tell me a way the spreadsheet could be misrepresenting the facts? I know of a one or two people who have got their machines and forgotten to update but the majority do within a day or two.
Yes of course it isn’t the whole of GF’s output. It is random sample of 405 customers out of something like 8000-10000.
But is shows precisely which order days have received emails, dispatches and deliveries. You can multiply by about 20 to get an idea of total GF output but that makes no difference to the story. There are 405 people on the sheet, 60 have machines, 5 are in transit, the rest are waiting, i.e. 360. There are only 77 days left so we need to see an average of more than four per day get deliveries on the sheet. That number is rising rapidly as the number of days go down.
It doesn’t matter if all the people not on the sheet get their GFs. They still have to send them to the people on the sheet.
I’m surprised how many people are truly mad at the spreadsheet. It tends to be represented as doubts about its accuracy and claims that it’s misleading, but I think the real reason is that it makes them experience very uncomfortable cognitive dissonance. It’s a tangible representation of the strange place a lot of us are in (myself included), where we want to believe that everything is on track, or at least still could be on track, and we especially want to believe that we’re not being lied to. But the spreadsheet says that it isn’t on track, and that Glowforge must know this, and it calls into question a matter of faith. When faith and reality collide, sparks fly.
Of course, I feel like I’m tainted because I have actually received my Glowforge Device. The line at the DMV seems like it’s taking forever and something needs to be done about this idiots ahead of me… until of course I get to the counter and completely stop caring about the line or anyone behind me. My perception is that shipping has picked up, and we’re seeing a lot more unboxing and first-project posts on the forum. Not as many as one would expect if the backlog is going to be cleared in time, but it’s well into non-zero territory.
The six-week gap between e-mail and shipping seems far less important to me (and I believe I felt the same way before I was chosen by the Claw). The difference between hoping there won’t be another delay that pushes it into next year and knowing you’re definitely getting it in a single-digit number of weeks is huge. I understand there are logistical complications for some people and it would help them greatly to know the actual date, but I think the whole “misleading definition” thing could be cleared up if they just changed the banner to “processing orders” instead of “shipping orders”.
I tend to agree. It’s not that there is an email that is the problem. They need to confirm address and acceptance and start the clock on the FTC rule somehow. So it’s legit that there is a process that starts with an email and has a clock.
I think it’s also important and good that they report progress through the email list since that tells you when you need to ask about your email, if you didn’t get one.
But clearly getting an email asking about your address is quite different from a built unit on a truck with tracking info. So I understand why people are frustrated. Mostly it’s because the little info we have says it’s unlikely that most of us are getting our Glowforge’s by Halloween.
If I don’t get my email this month I most likely wont get mine this year because won’t have a clear 6 weeks to receive it until February.
Since mine is a UK order I doubt I will get it soon because not even Canadian units have shipped. But it also doesn’t look like pros will get to day 4 this month either.
And because there isn’t a way of saying delay dispatch until a certain date it could turn out that my only option is wait until the software is out of beta. That might be an eternity!
It is very disappointing that after making us wait all this time they decide to have a totally unique shipping system that requires you to say you can accept it in the next six weeks, which means I will probably have to wait even longer.
and is just something people use to get an idea of where things are at with deliveries.