International shipping... arrival... receiving the much expected mail... don't know how to call this

Agree.

Im sure the GF doesnā€™t really care AT ALL about intl. costumersā€¦

Itā€™s a brand new company guys. The last year and a half has been spent building the machines, working out problems that they werenā€™t expecting and trying to add the things that everyone was clamoring for. They only recently shifted to manufacturing and shipping, and there are other things that go wrong during those stages.

While itā€™s not fair to expect international customers to have to wait longer, itā€™s also not fair to expect Glowforge to be able to pull off what an established company can immediately. They are a start-up.

Iā€™m not making excuses. But they canā€™t do anything they arenā€™t already doing. Theyā€™re not big enough yet.

A decade from now it will be a different story.

Iā€™m not trying to cheer anyone upā€¦youā€™ve got a right to be ticked off. The situation sucks.

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Thenā€¦ all of the costumers should be getting their units within the same time frameā€¦ not just first the US, then the worldā€¦ IMHO

My understanding is that some of the international countries will start receiving their units while the units are still being shipped domesticallyā€¦itā€™s going to depend on the country and how hard it is to get the logistics worked out.

So it is not ā€œfirst the US, then the rest of the worldā€. Shipping will start first in the US, it already has, but they will start to do international shipments before they finish here.

Itā€™s listed in the recent letter:

ā€œInternational shipments will start later but are scheduled to be completed at the same time as US shipments.ā€

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For what itā€™s worth, we spend more per international customer than we do per domestic customer, even after taking the different shipping costs into account. International legal compliance, for example, is extremely expensive. International deliveries are hard on our customers, and on us as well.

So while itā€™s fair to say youā€™re being punished, please know that we are too, and that the punishment isnā€™t coming from us - weā€™re just trying to deal with legal and logistical costs as best we can and as quickly as we can. That means that we give you more attention (and more dollars) than our local customersā€¦ and yet you still get later service.

Iā€™m sorry.

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Iā€™m just kind of confused at the moment. Are the international purchases just being postponed until you guys sort out a reasonable approach to get these babies world wide. Or are all international purchases being put at the end of the line to the US purchases?

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To be fair, part of the difference is the US has at times made it much easier for out-of-country companies to export and sell with the US. (Granted, that could be changing again.) the biggest hold-up Iā€™ve encountered, especially trying to sell in Europe in the past is getting your government compliance requirements all sorted out. A majority of that process canā€™t take place until a finished production unit is provided for ceritificaton. I donā€™t know about the beaurocrats in other countries, but ours I the US like to take their sweet time and take great pleasure in being a huge PITA.

Not saying that I wouldnā€™t be upset if I was in your shoes, I would. But it would probably be at the last 3 delays, not so much this one.

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The former.

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For EU to EU shipments there are no border controls.

For outside the EU imported products need CE certification but Asian companies simply ignore it, or fake it. Most of the cheap Chinese lasers would not pass any safety approvals but people have no problem buying them on eBay importing them into the UK. That is because the customs people have limited resources, so they spend their time looking for drugs and counterfeit branded fashion items.

On the other hand if you send anything electrical to the US customs want FCC approval documentation.

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We have very very strict rules in Australia but i would also suggest that we have a much lower volume of high-end coming through than the EU, Asia (and now the UK since you guys are not part of the EU anymore :slight_smile:)

I love (not) that my tax dollars are being used to protect poor Rolex from the evil Balinese knockoff market!

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We still are for a couple of years. Not sure if I will get my Glowforge before we leave the EU though.

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Dont forget to vote!

Honestly the Brexit move might be enough to make Australia finally ditch the monarchy as the level of facepalm here was even more than we usually give you poms

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I never vote and I donā€™t believe the majority of people know what is best. Votes should be weighted by IQ.

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Even that depends greatly on what youā€™re talking about. As a US-based architect, Iā€™ve often struggled with obtaining desirable European-made products. From complicated HVAC equipment and glass wall systems to decorative wall and ceiling panels. It is what it is, the manufacturing industry is tough.

To put things in perspective, the cost of any neccessary testing is often borne in full by the owner looking to import those materials (and itā€™s not unheard of for that to exceed 100%, or much more, of the actual product cost).

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Whatever the outcome. I hope that VAT doesnā€™t rise above 20%.

Value Added Tax, now thereā€™s an oxymoron!

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To Norway it is 25% on total price, including shipping. Will add 1010 USD on the cost of the Glowforge for me.

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@dan I only hope that in the unfortunate event that if a GF is shipped and reaches an intl customer damaged or defective, actions can be taken to reship a brand new GF taking care of the shipping. details can be worked out but to pay for shipping back and forth is as good as buying a brand new GFā€¦

GF staff, Rita in an earlier email correspondance with me assured me that shipping would be taken care of in the event of such an unfortunate incident. This is my only concern. I would rather wait and receive an awesome product than to receive one which I will have to tear my hair out of.

I think, from what Iā€™ve read is that it is more, ā€œshipping starts for each country/region as soon as Glowforge has jumped through all the hoops for that country/region.ā€

Shipping worldwide is not a single problem. As @dan mentioned, they have customers in at least 80 countries. That means 80 puzzles to solve, some with common components. So they will be working on a lot of them in parallel, but some will take longer than others. They are not going to wait to start international shipping until all the puzzles are solved.

I would expect that as each country comes ā€œon lineā€ any orders from that country that were delayed will then have priority over later domestic orders. I.e. The line for orders should treat all orders from all countries for which they have clearance to ship as a single priority queue and each time another country is solved, the orders for it get sorted into the shipping queue.

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