ROS Swag - Jackets Edition (Deadline June 27)

Martin_Guenther · 2020-06-25T07:59:14.134Z

smac:

Goeff mentioned to me its $2,000 for US to Japan as well, so this seems like mostly a policy with EU, not the US (not that we lack policies that irritate the EU, I’m sure). After $2,000 I totally get it, that’s high value imports, but 22 Euros is laughably small.

This is quickly getting very off-topic, but I feel the need to clarify two things so that this doesn’t come across as some anti-American policy:

The 19% import VAT has nothing to do with the US specifically; all non-EU countries are treated the same. The reason that it doesn’t apply to other EU countries is the European Single Market, so for the purpose of taxation and customs duties the EU is treated as if it were a single country. Also, VAT has already been paid for products from other EU countries, so they don’t get any preferential treatment from this policy.
More importantly, the reason that this 19% import VAT exists here and not in the US is that all (?) EU countries have a VAT, while the US has a sales tax instead. In the end, “it taxes the same people and businesses the same amounts of money, despite its internal mechanism being different” (Wikipedia). In the EU it has to be paid directly on import, while in the US it’s only paid during the final sale to the customer (alternatively, it has to be reported as use tax by the customer). Wikipedia has a summary:

en.wikipedia.org

Value-added tax | Imports and exports

Being a consumption tax, VAT is usually used as a replacement for sales tax. Ultimately, it taxes the same people and businesses the same amounts of money, despite its internal mechanism being different. There is a significant difference between VAT and sales tax for goods that are imported and exported:

Now let’s get back to discussing the great jackets that you made!

smac · 2020-06-25T17:25:46.560Z

Haha thanks for the clarification. I was poking fun at my own government but I appreciate the specificity!

Sarathkrishnan · 2020-06-25T18:19:49.966Z

The Jackets look awesome!
I just noticed that the ROS logo on the jackets has only 6 dots instead of 9. @smac it a design choice or a mockup issue?

smac · 2020-06-25T19:52:45.262Z

Sarathkrishnan:

I just noticed that the ROS logo on the jackets has only 6 dots instead of 9.

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Yes, I will have that fixed. I’m shocked that me nor anyone else pointed that out until now!

smac · 2020-06-25T19:57:17.459Z

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Updates

christophebedard · 2020-06-25T20:55:35.010Z

smac:

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well, 9/9, you got this one right

smac · 2020-06-25T22:29:23.430Z

That would have been a hilarious misprint. Years later snowballs into a formal change of the logo to only 6 dots

gbiggs · 2020-06-25T23:39:19.666Z

Should have gone for 18. It’s ROS * 2, right?

smac · 2020-06-26T02:15:44.283Z

Quick last call: Last orders in by tomorrow at Midnight San Francisco time. Any orders after that point will need to be directly confirmed by me.

Kasper_Jeppesen · 2020-06-26T13:35:21.680Z

Hi @smac - Greetings from Denmark and thanks from the initiative.

I hope I am reading the time-zones correctly and that the deadline is not up yet, because I just ordered a jacket and the paypal should have been processed already

smac · 2020-06-26T18:26:21.890Z

Yup, you are fine. You have another 12 hours to submit an application and 36 hours to submit a payment.

We currently have 42 orders of which 10 still need payment. I know @Katherine_Scott likes metrics so here’s some:

We have orders from: USA, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, France, and Scotland
Assuming I don’t get absolutely destroyed by shipping fees, we’re on target to raise ~$300 for our goal of designing a navigation2 logo! That’s enough to hire a cheap designer on 99Designs.
Exactly 50% of orders are international relative to the US

marguedas · 2020-06-26T19:22:56.309Z

That’s awesome, congrats for the success of this campaign!

smac:

We currently have 42 orders

Sounds like an ultimate number to me

smac · 2020-06-27T07:04:06.496Z

Order forms have now closed, thank you for everyone that put in an order. If you would still like to order one, please reach out to me in the next 12 hours or forever lack #ros #swag.

I’ll be in touch on this thread and over email as I have new information. I will place the order on Monday so I should have some info on processing time and shipping in the coming week.

gstavrinos · 2020-06-30T12:22:07.510Z

Because I am having nightmares for not ordering that awesome jacket:

Are there any plans to add ROS jackets to next teespring campaigns?
Are there any plans for a second wave of the same format? (Personal smac postage instead of using a company)

Whatever the answer to those questions, I appreciate the volunteering work you have taken on your shoulders, Steve.

P.S. I think the beginning of the month instead of the end of it would be better wage-wise

smac · 2020-06-30T16:21:32.507Z

I can’t speak for Open Robotics and what they might plan to do in their own future campaigns based on this experiment.

I have no plans for a second wave in the immediate foreseeable future.

smac · 2020-06-30T20:08:17.683Z

Update: The jackets have been ordered an confirmed.

I expect to get the jackets in the next 2 weeks, except Men’s Small size, which is currently on backorder. We should have the Men’s Small in October (I know, long time out, sincere apologies on that, the distributor was not up front with me about that. They said they were 2 weeks backordered, not 3 months). If it helps, October is the perfect time to get a new fleece and mine is also a small.

Happy fleecing,
Steve

gbiggs · 2020-07-01T00:17:25.171Z

That’s OK, it’s not like I can wear it before October anyway.

gstavrinos · 2020-07-01T09:46:09.865Z

I guess I will have to live with those nightmares then! Thanks, Steve!

smac · 2020-07-08T05:15:36.855Z

Quick update: I got a shipping notification and I should be getting them in my hands in about a week. It will probably take me a few weeks on top of that to get them ready for shipment with envelopes / paperwork and such (waiting to order all envelopes until I have one in hand to ensure they fit). My goal will be to get them all out before the end of July and I’ll probably do them in batches of 5-10 (45 total orders). I’ll send out an email when your order has shipped.

Quick reminder on Smalls:

smac:

I expect to get the jackets in the next 2 weeks, except Men’s Small size, which is currently on backorder. We should have the Men’s Small in October (I know, long time out, sincere apologies on that, the distributor was not up front with me about that. They said they were 2 weeks backordered, not 3 months). If it helps, October is the perfect time to get a new fleece and mine is also a small.

Katherine_Scott · 2020-07-17T16:55:08.491Z

Picked up some hot new street wear on Mission street last night.

Thanks @smac!

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