Low taxes, efficient infrastructure, no import/export fees and red tape for most products including high-tech items, good quality of life.
##### Why are you in Manila?
For the convenience of our customers who may be discouraged from doing business with companies registered in Hong Kong.
##### Where will my Sinara order be manufactured and where will it ship from?
M-Labs can manufacture Sinara hardware orders in Hong Kong, or, upon request, in Manila, Philippines. Additional fees, minimum quantities, and/or extended lead times may apply to orders to be made in the Philippines. Shipping is from the manufacturing place.
##### Do I need to pay additional import fees?
M-Labs ships orders according to FCA or DAP terms as defined by the International Commercial Terms (Incoterms<sup>®</sup>) published by the International Chamber of Commerce, edition 2020.
According to these terms, you are responsible for resolving problems created by customs at the destination country or territory, at your own expense.
If you are a credit customer (eligible for Net 15 or Net 30 payment), upon your request and for your convenience, we may ask UPS to deal with customs on your behalf and we will add the fees to your final invoice.
Import fees are determined by customs at the time of import in the destination country or territory, and are outside our control.
##### My institution cannot import your products. Do you have a distributor in my country?
Typical countries where this situation happens and suitable distributor contacts are as follows:
* China (mainland): kitty-zheng@kehua-trade.com
* Japan: hishida@symphotony.com or h_yamamoto@autex-inc.co.jp
You are responsible for paying distributor fees and we do not grant discounts on the basis of requiring a distributor. On our side, we do not mandate the use of any distributor and we can ship directly to you or via another distributor of your choosing not listed here. Generally, you may solve the import problems created by customs and other bureaucracy in any way that you deem acceptable.
M-Labs ships with UPS by default, and we also offer FedEx or DHL shipping for an additional fee. We can ship on your courier account and you may also arrange your own pickup and shipping. For orders exceeding USD 200.00, there is no handling fee.
* 10% discount plus free DAP shipping if the research supported by our equipment is made public and exclusively published in a non-predatory scientific journal. A non-predatory journal is defined as an open access journal with an article processing fee of USD 500.00 or less.
* Volume discounts (applies to new orders and not retroactively, volume is determined over the 365 days prior to the new order, the new order is included in the amount compared against the threshold):
- 2% discount with an order volume exceeding USD 100,000.00.
- 4% discount with an order volume exceeding USD 250,000.00.
* Use of our equipment exclusively in jurisdictions outside the World Bank's "High Income" group, and where the R&D expenditure is less than 2% of GDP as determined by the World Bank, and which do not possess nuclear weapons.
* Equipment with cosmetic or other minor damage - please enquire.
* Advanced hobbyist and amateur use. Please describe your project when applying for the discount and provide supporting evidence (e.g. publications of past projects, personal website, copy of amateur radio license, ...).
We reserve the right of final decision regarding discount eligibility and amount.
##### I am on a really tight budget, what can I do?
You can build a useful ARTIQ system and spend very little money by running the open-source code on mass-produced low-cost electronics that were not made for this purpose. For example, in theory the [Colorlight-75E](https://hackaday.com/2020/01/24/new-part-day-led-driver-is-fpga-dev-board-in-disguise/) and [EBAZ4205](https://github.com/xjtuecho/EBAZ4205) can be used as core devices, and the Taobao shop [ZONRI](https://world.taobao.com/dianpu/73267337.htm) sells many inexpensive boards that can be useful as I/O peripherals such as DDS and data converters.
This is not a turn-key solution; experience with electronics, FPGA, and software development is required, and you will have to spend some time studying the code, porting it to these boards, writing drivers, and building hardware adapters.
For most products, we offer a 1-year warranty against manufacturing defects.
##### What should I do if I need technical support, or there is a problem with my order?
Please contact us at helpdesk@m-labs.hk.
If you have contacted the helpdesk and your issue cannot be satisfactorily resolved, then contact sb@m-labs.hk or text +852 65873703. Mention your helpdesk ticket number.
For most established institutions (determined at our discretion), we offer Net 15 and Net 30 terms after delivery. Please enquire from your institutional email address to help us determine your eligibility for these terms.
For all others, payment is due 100% in advance before shipment.
Letters of credit are not an option.
##### What currency can I pay in?
We accept all major currencies including USD, EUR, RMB, GBP, BTC and XMR.
##### Can I pay by credit card?
Yes, however processing credit cards is expensive and you need to cover the costs. 4\% card processing fee applies for payment by credit card in Hong Kong dollars. 7\% card processing and exchange fee applies for payment by credit card in US dollars.
##### We are a distributor. Can we have exclusive rights to your products?
Exclusivity is subject to contractual minimum order volumes determined at our discretion, but generally exceeding USD 300,000.00 per year for most countries.
[m-labs-intl.com](https://m-labs-intl.com) is a mirror site operated by us and hosted in the USA by Hetzner. It is useful in situations where your institution or local authorities block access to Hong Kong websites (.hk domains and/or Hong Kong IP addresses). To our knowledge, no internet blocking is done on the Hong Kong side other than through ISP DNS resolvers, which we do not use and which does not affect your access to our website.
Some features are currently not available on the mirror site, and you may use a VPN or another circumvention measure of your choice to access these as required.
##### Why are you ignoring my emails?
If you are using the email server of a large institution, be aware that some may silently drop emails sent to .hk email addresses and/or to servers located in Hong Kong.
Try sending your message from your personal address (for example Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo do not block our email system), or to the same email address at the m-labs-intl.com domain (for example, sales@m-labs-intl.com or sb@m-labs-intl.com).
Alternatively, you may use our [contact phone numbers](../office/), which are also registered with several popular messaging apps.
