You reached your funding goals with your latest crowdfunding campaign.
Congratulations!
But your work isn’t done yet. Now it’s time to for you to ship out the products and deliver on the added perks or incentives you promised your backers.
And that can be an intimidating process. Depending on the number of backers and products that need to be shipped out, you could be overwhelmed by the amount of work you have ahead of you.
Don’t worry – you’re in the right place.
Here’s your guide to crowdfunding order fulfillment:
Make Your Reward Fulfillment Easy
We’ve recently covered Five Ways To Make Crowdfunding Fulfillment Easy, but it’s worth going over these points again, because there’s no reason to over-complicate the delivery of your product.
By taking note of these steps, you can ensure that your fulfillment process isn’t more extensive than it needs to be.
Planning ahead keeps you from being a statistic:
The Kickstarter Fulfillment Report that was released in December 2015 discovered that 9% of Kickstarter campaigns fail to deliver.
Here are the five ways to keep you from being a statistic and to keep your perk fulfillment streamlined:
- Set aside a budget:
- Delivering on perks and rewards can be costly. Plan in advance, and start saving.
- Simplify your offering:
- Plan out what you’re going to offer your backers.
- For example, if one of the perks is a T-shirt, having too many colors and styles could make fulfillment more difficult than it needs to be.
- Account for postage and packaging costs:
- Those new to crowdfunding often forget to factor postage and packaging costs into their funding goals.
- Absorbing these costs out-of-pocket can be a headache, particularly if you are sending larger items, so remember to plan in advance.
- Create a buffer:
- Put extra money aside for production costs, shipping charges, and other fees.
- Don’t forget customs:
- Make sure that your product can be legally sent to your backers (and their country), and keep in mind that customs rates and import taxes are variable and can change over time.
Use A Tool Like BackerKit To Manage Orders
BackerKit is a great tool for data gathering. It allows you to turn backer survey responses into data that can be used for manufacturing and fulfillment.
Although platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo may offer some basic tools in terms of order and backer management, they can prove insufficient to the fulfillment process. It’s a lot more complicated than you might be inclined to believe.
BackerKit really helps with streamlining the entire process, and is a tool you should consider using if fulfillment is proving challenging.
Keep Your Kickstarter and Indiegogo Backers Up-To-Date
This is critically important to maintaining trust with those who decided to help fund your project idea.
You need to keep the lines of communication open with your backers, even after the campaign is over. You need to let them know when they can expect to receive their products and perks.
When things are running behind, don’t hesitate to let your contributors know.
Nothing can hurt your reputation more than not making good on your promises.
Don’t Pay For Services You Don’t Need
Nearly 90% of crowdfunding project creators use a fulfillment software or service to help them ship out their products and rewards (BackerKit).
It’s not hard to see why. The process can be both costly and complex. With the right support, you can get everything shipped out faster and cheaper.
But beware of blowing your budget on services you don’t require.
As long as you take appropriate measures to simplify your project, you shouldn’t run into any problems with crowdfunding, but you might be surprised by how many people don’t take the time to pick a service or app that scales to their needs.
Conclusion
The key to fulfilling crowdfunding campaigns is to keep things simple, and to set aside plenty of money for shipping costs.
Many project creators forget to factor fulfillment into their expenses, and are later taken by surprise.
Before a crowdfunding campaign turns into a costly affair, make sure to take a look at the bigger picture. If you plan well, you shouldn’t run into many unexpected contingencies.
Ready to get your Crowdfunding Fulfillment plan in order, so you have a realistic idea and understanding of what it is going to take to get your successfully crowdfunded product to your backers, get your free consultation with a Floship Crowdfunding specialist today.
The Floship Certified Logistics Program: FCLP
Once you are ready to launch your crowdfunding project, don’t forget to understand your obligations when it comes to fulfilling your project to your backers. Before you launch, you can apply for a Floship Certified Logistics Badge (FCLP) to add to your campaign page and ensure your backers that you’ve got the info you need to know how to deliver on your projects promises.
Find out more about the FCLP and how Floship can help you get your project to a global audience.
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