Advice on shipping & fulfilment

[guru]

Hi All,

As a newbie to Kickstarter campaigns, I'm a bit struggling on how to come up with numbers for shipping. I had tried contacting MPC earlier and Ship Naked later, but there is no clarity to me as to how to come up with shipping amount for various countries while creating Kickstarter campaign.

I've been a backer on Kickstarter and I've felt the pain of paying high prices on shipping (shipment to Australia has always been higher), but I don't want the same to happen to my backers. I'd been reading and following Stonemaier blog, have even tried contacting creators with good track record of successful campaigns, but still, it eludes me. The projects like Don Quixote Playing Cards Vol.1 with free shipping offer piques my interest and makes me a backer of such campaigns considering the quality of the designs and the intention of the creator with a backer first mentality. Still, I'm not sure how one can manage that because any of such projects does carry a risk.

I'll really appreciate if former or current creators/designers can share their insights and perspective on shipping & fulfilment charges, how did they manage, best practice or rules of thumb they followed and what were the key learnings during fulfilment phase.


Regards,
Sunish

[albinodragon]

If you've already been reading Jamey's page, that's some of the best advice that you can get.

It's great that you want to reduce costs for international shipping, but the harsh reality is that it IS expensive to send things outside of your country (and sometimes even within it).

The best way to reduce costs is to use one or more proven fulfillment houses within the region that you want to distribute to. The majority of your backers will come from the US, so that's a good place to start.

[guru]

If you've already been reading Jamey's page, that's some of the best advice that you can get.

It's great that you want to reduce costs for international shipping, but the harsh reality is that it IS expensive to send things outside of your country (and sometimes even within it).

The best way to reduce costs is to use one or more proven fulfillment houses within the region that you want to distribute to. The majority of your backers will come from the US, so that's a good place to start.

Hi Erik,

Appreciate your reply.

Yeah, I've started looking into different options given by Jamie and talking to vendors now. I'd like to offer lowest possible shipping rates to non-US backers, but when I started delving into the numbers, it became a high risk proposition. Considering it being my first time, and my inexperience with this stuff, I'd to go back to the whiteboard once again.

If you'd used services of any non-US fulfillment house in your previous campaigns, could you please share their names with me.


Regards,
Sunish

[Mike Ratledge]

Sunish, for playing card decks, the two big players that many campaigns use are Lake Michigan Mailers and Gambler's Warehouse fulfillment center in Texas.

I have contact information for both if you need it. A third option - IF (and only if) you are using Legends PCC to print is fulfillment by them from Hong Kong.

I'd start with those and see where it goes.

I will toss you into the Deck Artist group. Enjoy!

[guru]

Hi All,

I found the following on Jamey's blog and think it will benefit anyone new to Kickstarter, and may be experienced ones as well.

The sheet has pretty good information on a no. of International Shipping partners.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... =184212979


Regards,
Sunish