@dan mentioned FedEx and DHL at one point–I’d like to know what company will be used to ship my Glowforge to Japan.
Japan’s customs office gave me information on how much tax would be levied, but they couldn’t give me information on how to actually pay it. I’d like to follow up directly with the shipping company so I can be clear on exactly how the GF will get to my door before it is shipped.
We haven’t announced which shipping company we’ll be using per country yet. There are a lot of countries that have ordered Glowforge units!
Thanks @dan. May I assume that I will have sufficient time to research and cancel after you announce but before the unit is shipped?
You can cancel up until you provide us with your shipping address for delivery, so you’re in control.
@cedarandmiso I’m also in Japan (recently moved here). I don’t know how which carrier it will be, of course, but I just had a 3D printer shipped here from the US via DHL and basically the way it worked is that DHL paid the duties at customs clearance and then when the product gets delivered to your door you have to pay the delivery guy (from the local shipping company which then reimburses DHL). In my case it was just shy of Y30000.
I’d very much appreciate if you could share whatever info you got from Japan customs regarding importing the GlowForge. I’ve been a bit worried if there might be any issues with importing the laser…
I sent JETRO a couple emails on this but their responses were not exactly enlightening. The scenario you described sounds very likely, but what I couldn’t figure out was whether there would be any hangup at the port itself–whether the shipping company would maintain control of the package the whole time, or whether it would need to change hands through middlemen who I would need to be in touch with beforehand. The fastest way to resolve this would probably be to call the Japan office of UPS and DHL and ask, but I haven’t gotten around to it. 