Please don’t, for your own protection:
Hello Framework Community,
We’ve made it through our first holiday season crunch and we’d like to welcome all of the new Framework Laptop owners into the fold! You are amongst friends and we’re glad you’re here. Yes, there were logistical hurdles that many companies, not only our own, had to jump over to get product out our doors and to yours in the US and Canada. Hopefully you are all enjoying your new shinies and are taking advantage of what your Framework Laptop has to offer.
I wanted to ta…
Lastly, given the increased global interest in Framework, our mission, and the Framework Laptop, we’re seeing a significant increase in attempts to freight forward our product to countries outside of our officially supported country list. We understand that patience is running thin for customers that are in countries not yet available for us to sell our products in or ship to, but we have to politely ask that you wait for official support as there are legitimate reasons why we have not started shipping to more countries immediately. There are rules, regulations, and laws that have to be adhered to, logistics/fulfillment partners to onboard, language support requirements, commercial invoice creation, VAT requirements, and the list goes on and on. We’ve recently opened preorders for the UK, France, and Germany with shipments coming soon. Preparation for just those three additional countries was a massive undertaking, and we have more countries in the queue for future launch. We can’t commit to or share which countries are next as things are fluid with the items I’ve listed above. Dates can slide based on the work being done, responses that have not yet been received, requirements that are not yet met, etc. We need to make sure we are playing by the rules, and when folks freight forward, we get put in a tough spot as we no longer control shipment from us to you. We’ve lost product because the freight forwarded product gets locked up in Customs due to lack of proper documentation and the customer is unfortunately left holding the bag as we are not authorized to be in said country. We also don’t have official logistics ties to these countries, so we are unable to provide hardware replacement/RMA support should anything go wrong. All-in-all, it’s a terrible customer experience that we have no power over and don’t want to put anyone through. Please, we know it’s tough, but hang in there.
Note this is not a slight against your country or anything like that - it’s just that it’s really complicated for reasons @Twistgibber outlines in that thread. Even within the EU, if freight forwaded shipments get caught by customs, Framework could be in a lot of trouble, and that might mean no one in your country would be able to get one for a long time.
Believe me, the company really wants to!
Now, of course, if it was delivered to an address or a postal box within a supported country, no one will ever find out. You’d have to do any support via that address too though. Still, fancy a trip?
5 Likes