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10 Tips for Successful Crowdfunding Fulfillment

November 15, 2019 eCommerce Tips

After a successful crowdfunding campaign comes the crowdfunding fulfillment. This stage involves the manufacturing or any way you wish to get the rewards for your supporters, packaging, and shipping out the rewards. It is the last and crucial stage in crowdfunding. There is a need for careful planning, to ensure you don’t end up draining your funds, or sourcing for money elsewhere to get the rewards for your customers. Below are some tips to ensure a successful crowdfunding fulfillment:

Incorporate Fulfillment into Your Plan from the Beginning

Behind every success, there is proper planning. Building your fulfillment details into your crowdfunding plan from the beginning helps a great deal in ensuring a successful fulfillment. Details like the weight of the item you’re planning as rewards, dimensions, designs, packaging, shipping, and some other things should be mapped out from the beginning.

Calculate Shipping Costs

To ensure a successful crowdfunding fulfillment, you need to have an idea of your shipping costs before the campaign begins. In light of this, all the factors that may influence shipping costs need to be considered. Also, research all shipping options, like rates, transit times, shipping methods, and dimensional weight rules, which most times differ by carrier. The idea is to do your due diligence and come up with an accurate shipping cost for every reward you’ll be offering your supporters.

Know Which Countries You’ll Be Shipping To

You are not expecting supports from only the people in your country, are you? In fact, the most successful campaigns are supported by people from around the world. Donations from around the world are where you can really get more inflow, and at the same time, where you can really lose money when it comes to delivering your rewards. When heading into your crowdfunding campaign, ensure you know the countries you’ll be shipping to, and determine the necessary dimensions and costs for shipping 

Calculate Postage

Some crowdfunders often forget or fail to include this cost in their plan. Postage costs can quickly add up, and the unbudgeted extra costs can affect your whole plan. One reward item that you thought would cost a few dollars may end up costing more.  Therefore it is important always to calculate your postage cost to be on the safe side, which in turn ensures you deliver your fulfillment without having to complain to your supporters. 

Packaging

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There is also a need to make sure your rewards packages are chosen and packaged carefully. Ensure the packaging you choose is not too tight or too loose, durable, and large enough. When it is not too loose, and just large enough, there will be little space around to add extra bubbles or cushioning materials to offer extra goodies, and still protect your item. 

Add a Safety Margin

Manufacturing challenges, unexpected issues or unforeseen circumstances may arise during the course of any project; it is necessary to mitigate against these risks to avoid delays, and disappointing your supporters when it is time for crowdfunding fulfillment. To mitigate the risks, you should factor in extra budget that will cater for situations such as an unexpected increase in material costs, a rise in production costs, and many others.

Calculate the Import Duty and VAT Tax

Well, some of these charges that come with your rewards will still be paid by your supporters during claiming. Therefore during your campaign, it is necessary to remind overseas customers that they may have to pay these fees. By doing this, you are showing transparency in your campaign. There are online resources like import and export duty calculator that can be used in line with this purpose.

Plan for Staff and Warehousing Costs

You can either take on the crowdfunding fulfillment on your own or give it out to a fulfillment company to do for you. If you are going for the DIY, you need to consider factors such as warehouse space and costs, staff on hand to package and ship the rewards. Also, their wages, and some other related factors. However, if your crowdfunding campaign involves a whole lot of people, then consider getting a fulfillment partner or a company that will help, and also take note of the cost of their services.

Simplify Your Offer

In order not to get choked up with unnecessary costs, there’s a need to make the rewards you will be offering your backers as simple as possible. If you are planning on giving out a particular item as part of your rewards, don’t make the mistake of getting it complicated. When an offer is not simplified, production and distribution tend to take time. Simplifying your rewards is one good way of completing your campaign on time, and having a successful fulfillment.

Crowdfunding Fulfillment Company

If your crowdfunding campaign is a large scale one that involves many people, then getting a fulfillment company for the fulfillment process can help in making the whole campaign a success. They take up all the fulfillment responsibilities that you have, such as production, packaging, storage, and shipping. Almost 90% of crowdfunded projects used some fulfillment service or software as the companies make the crowdfunding fulfillment easier, and less stressful for you.

There you have it! Above are some essential tips for successful crowdfunding fulfillment. The fulfillment period can be an extremely trying time for crowdfunders. To have a successful crowdfunding fulfillment, you need some great tips to help in making the process smooth, and above are some of these tips. Proper packaging, mitigating beforehand all the costs you may likely incur during the campaign, meeting your delivery date, and constant update for your backers will help a great deal in making your fulfillment a successful one.

For more information about our crowdfunding fulfillment services, contact us today at Fulfillman. We specialize in picking, packing, and shipping backer rewards and products of different sizes and shapes. Our services are prompt, detailed, and highly reliable. Our dedicated team will be available to speak with you and provide suitable answers to your questions and concerns. When it comes to handling the logistical aspect of your crowdfunding campaign, you can always count on us for outstanding and unparalleled services.