Schools / people who use P.O.'s do you ever buy from glowforge? Makes it impossible for us

So I am a classroom teacher that uses glowforge, I want to buy the profucts from gowforge, ie. materials to cut. However they make it nearly impossible seeing that to use a P.O. you must buy an excessive amount of product ($2,000+). To me that is pretty annoying, glowforge is extremely kid friendly, it could be like how makerbot was in schools, however the P.O. thing is going to immediately make that a huge issue.

I could buy my acrylic from somewhere else, I just liked the non-smelly glowforge stuff that was made to be cut on it so I was sure that it was safe…

Not at all countering your annoyance, but the acrylic from GF isn’t any different from cast acrylic from anywhere else (it is NOT odor-free). You may find some with a plastic masking instead of the paper, but you can ask about that in advance. Basically, you can buy the same acrylic cheaper elsewhere.

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The issue is they use FedEx for fulfillment and neither FedEx or UPS deliver to PO boxes. Why can’t they ship using USPS? I don’t know, but they don’t.

Problems and Support doubles as a place to post ideas about making glowforge better. If you make a new thread there they will at least see this is an issue for some users. In the meantime I guess you’ll just have to ship it to the principal’s house. I’m sure s/he won’t mind as it’s for the kids. :joy:

in this context, PO means Purchase Order, not Post Office.

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Thanks. It makes a lot more sense now.

I’m used to PO = purchase order and P.O. = post office box. I just figured schools using PO Boxes was some new security thing.

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Accepting purchase orders requires a company to effectively become a credit/loan company with the associated legal and administrative processes. It’s likely they are not set up to do that for small purchases like materials, as it is not representative of their customer base.

If your organization doesn’t have a credit card, then the best option is probably going to be purchasing your materials elsewhere.

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Try being in another country.
I’m in Canada and if I order 100 dollars worth of material they want to charge me 116 dollars for fedex international ground shipping

Meanwhile, if I am sending it to someone in the US I can get shipping for free and then have THEM send it fedex international ground for 55 dollars.

The more I see the proofgrade selection and what the alternatives are the more and more I am upset by it. Even ordering 300 dollars worth of stuff from another US company I was able to get my materials for under 60 bucks in shipping.

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Minor nitpick…

Cast acrylic from GF cuts like most cast acrylic from anywhere else. However, some brands smell more than others, and some types of acrylic get an oily sheen after cutting.

There are really not that many brands of acrylic sheets. Most distributors carry the same few brands and then there are some fancy outliers. Care to share which ones you’ve had bad experiences with?

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Wondering how you can tell unless you open the lid the instant it stops printing. There should be no odor during operation.

Check with your local sign making/ trophy shop, they may have useable off cuts that they would love to donate or charge a small fee for. I’ve also run into the PO issue, and it is very frustrating!

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I would check to see if you can use a purchase order at the local Jo-Anns Fabric even if they need to order it. As a Local business they would be more likely to want to go out of their way to help out their local schools.

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