During crowdfunding campaign, the backers who support a project also want something in return; a little appreciation of their efforts is not out of line. This is where crowdfunding fulfillment comes in. Crowdfunding fulfillment is the last stage of any crowdfunding campaign; it involves fulfilling the promises made to backers.

With all the excitement of launching a crowdfunding campaign, crowd funders often forget to plan for fulfillment. This is one of the biggest mistakes one could make in crowdfunding and can affect the success of the campaign.  Here are some things you need to know about crowdfunding fulfillment:

Fulfillment Planning

Crowdfunding fulfillment is so important that preparation should start long before you even launch your campaign. You need to calculate and have an idea of cost, how much work, or time everything will take beforehand. As a crowd funder, what kind of rewards do you want to give your backers, think about the essential features you must have on them, and the cost of one. Also, try and estimate the manufacturing and shipping costs of these rewards to your backers accurately. With this, crowdfunding fulfillment gets easy when you reach the phase.

Keeping the Rewards Simple

Imagine your rewards are in the form of t-shirts. Getting four different t-shirt designs on six colors of shirts with varying locations of print can be a bit complicated for your backers and even time consuming for you – the crowd funder. If you want to offer four sizes, with six colors, and three different designs – you are now on the hook to get 72 different items rewards. While variety is the spice of life, it’s best to make everything simple for yourself and the backers. One or two variables is often straightforward for backers to choose from, and also make your manufacturing and delivery time faster.

Duties and Taxes

Charges such as import duties and taxes need to be carefully mapped out and considered. Shipping the rewards to your backers can not be free, when you ship something to another country, you or your customer may be asked to pay additional duties and taxes before the shipment is delivered. These charges can vary per country; this is why it is necessary planning for them. Also, you should consider informing overseas customers that they may have to pay these fees to their local authority during claiming. Luckily, many online resources and calculators can be used in calculating all these costs, with multiple countries options.

Packaging

This is another essential part of crowdfunding fulfillment that is worth knowing. The sooner you understand your needs, the easier it becomes to make designs, packaging decisions, and incorporating packaging costs into your budget. Yes! Careful packaging can even lower the cost of your shipping at times. If your product can be folded or disassembled in such a way that the quality is not affected, it will fit in a smaller package, thereby lowering shipping costs. Also, items should not be too tight or too loose; if they are too loose, extras like goodies and bubbles can be added to fill up space.  How about the price of the package itself? The price of packaging can vary according to size, design, and materials. All these should be taken into consideration for your crowdfunding fulfillment.  

Staff and Warehousing Costs

You can either do crowdfunding fulfillment on your own or give it out to a fulfillment company to handle on your behalf. Whatever the option you are using, you’ll have to pay for these costs in one way or the other. If you are going to be handling the fulfillment, then you need to consider factors such as staff costs and warehousing costs since you will probably have to hire few people and a place to store the products before shipping.

Knowing Which Countries You’ll Be Shipping To

Most crowdfunding platforms are global, and people from around the world support most successful campaigns. Donations from around the world are where you can get more inflow, and at the same time, where you can really lose money when it comes to delivering your rewards. This is why you need to know which countries the rewards will be shipped to when it is time for fulfillment. When you know the countries you will be shipping to, it helps in projecting and budgeting costs for shipping locally, and internationally.

Calculating Shipping Costs

This deals with having prior knowledge of your shipping costs before fulfillment even begins. Some factors and shipping options may influence shipping costs; some of these factors are dimensions and weight rules, transit times, rate, shipping methods, and many others. Calculating shipping costs involve taking into consideration all of these factors, and finding an estimate for the shipping costs of your rewards, then putting this estimate in your plan or campaign budget.

Safety Margin

Simply put, this process involves mitigating against various risks in order to avoid disappointment during crowdfunding fulfillment. Challenges during production, unexpected issues can come up. To be on the safer side and maintain your backers’ trust, adding a safety margin is necessary. This can be ensured by adding extra cost or time to your budget to cater for any unexpected situation.

Because crowdfunding fulfillment comes last doesn’t make it any less important. In actual fact, it is a crucial phase of crowdfunding. Without it, a crowdfunding campaign cannot be said to be completed. Crowdfunding fulfillment can be an exciting phase if done well, and luckily, above are all there is to know about it!

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.