FedEx and UPS are both $0.90 per $100, after the first $100, which seems a far better value than what you were being charged. Ouch! The effective rate is a little more than the 0.9% though because most people don’t realize that the first $100 is excluded from the claim - so $1000 of coverage is really $900. Those are retail rates - I’m sure it’s even cheaper for Glowforge.
There are 3rd party insurance providers that are even as little as 1/2 the cost of FedEx/UPS.
One of my first handful of jobs when I was younger was a small business that did an extensive amount of mail-order. I noticed that a fair amount of our packages were delivered after the guaranteed delivery dates. I started tracking packages and we were able to get a large amount of shipping refunds on packages that were delivered late. If you’re shipping a fair amount - this can really add up quickly. I’ve noticed that the majority of my Amazon Prime packages are being delivered late now; I would guess they have an automated tracking service that identifies these packages and submits the claim!
to an extent. i used to ship a lot of really expensive computers back to the manufacturer. i commented about insurance once and the guy was like yeah, we ship so much so often that they would only give us $100 back, no matter the insurance / value of item.
They have never denied a claim based on a used box so far. It is pretty hard for them to deny a claim if the box is in good condition and the damage is obviously due to mis-handling.
That’s interesting. I just had my first late one (by a day) in about a year. It is infrequent enough that it made an impression. Wonder what’s up with your delivery route.
I have a minor quibble about the way he connected his high voltage, I must admit. I felt as if slipping the lead between the plastic cover and the clip was a poor choice. I think it would have been a more solid connection if he slid it between the two curls, and curved it around. It would have had more contact area with the HV lead and better reliability, IMO.
Early on, Glowforge made such a big deal about the cool designs they were putting into place to make tube replacement easier. The high voltage connection would have been high on that list. Suspect we wouldn’t have to deal with some of what he did. I haven’t looked at that video in about a year so can’t quite remember it all.
I can’t imagine many people in the UK having space to store it as modern houses don’t have any storage space. The only place I could put it would be in the loft, but I doubt it would fit through the hatch. It is also a cold roof space insulated from the rooms below. It will be at atmospheric humidity, so cardboard will probably go a bit soft when stored there for years.
I used to keep boxes but I buy so many things nowadays I have given up. The only thing I have ever had that failed under warranty was a large flat screen TV. The box was far too big to keep but Panasonic sent two technicians from a local company out to repair it on site, so they didn’t expect anybody to keep the packaging.
I was surprised how poor the connections are on Russ’ “quality” tube. I expected them to be like the anode caps on thermionic valves or the EHT connection on a CRT. Those are much more mechanically sound and have proper connectors that clip on. Why don’t laser tubes employ the existing techniques? Seems like it is exactly the same application: connecting a high voltage to a wire that goes through glass. Anode caps can’t be expensive as vacuum tubes were much cheaper than laser tubes.
They don’t see your packaging when you ship it via their website so and you do have to check the box that said you read & accept their 12 pages of terms and conditions (which no one reads) that says what kind of packaging is covered.
If they loose the package, then you are reimbursed. I’ve had UPS and FedEx both loose several packages that were worth thousands of dollars. Without insurance, we would have been in the out the money.
So how do you expect people to be able to store it for years?
You make a nice small format laser cutter that is suitable for a home or office environment but expect people to have storage space for a large box. I live in a relatively large four bedroom house and there are only two of us but I don’t have space to store boxes that size. How many people do?
I went through a long spate with Amazon about late Prime packages. It was so unusual for them and beginning to really annoy me, that I would ‘chat’ with support about it every time and express my disappointment and annoyance. I didn’t want it to go unnoticed. Every time, they would give me an extra month of Prime as ‘compensation’…which I would accept, but also let them know that all they were doing was extending a service that was not working. In my opinion, ever since they partnered with USPS was when the problems began happening.
I think this may just be randomness. A year, two years ago?? I had a spate of late packages. Extended my prime each time. Then everything went back to normal.
About the same time they had stocked the wrong book in the bin dedicated to the book I wanted. Get the wrong book. Return it. Complain and get a month extension. Same thing happens again. I was torn between extending my prime until it became a lifetime benefit or contacting a human. My poorer self won the debate and I contacted them.
Mine has gotten back to normal, as well. They’ve been doing much better. Perhaps it was just a period of change and everything hadn’t gotten into sync, yet. Prime is funny that way…I suppose we could cancel our membership, but what would that get us?..nothing any better, that’s for sure. My brother and I refer to Amazon as AIG…Amazon Instant Gratification.
I love the USPS partnership. I get stuff on Saturdays & Sundays a lot now. UPS would only deliver weekdays to me but the handoff to the post office seems to work well and Sunday delivery is a great bonus.
Everything seems to be just fine now, though I don’t ever get Sunday deliveries. Probably because I’m in such a small town. I do get Saturdays, though.