Crowdfunding is a great way to start a small business, whether you use Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or another platform entirely. Running an Indiegogo campaign brings a lot of attention to your brand and can help make your product dreams into reality, complete with the funding needed to make it happen.
Crowdfunding is also exhausting! Or, at least, it can be.
Early in the life of crowdfunding, the vast majority of campaigns shipped later than expected. It’s hard to find recent statistics, but if you talk to backers, the problem still exists.
Simply put, creators dramatically underestimate how hard it is to get a campaign shipped.
Overwhelmed with your Kickstarter? Check out our free Kickstarter checklist. It lists everything you need to know to get your Kickstarter campaign shipped.
Why Outsource Order Fulfillment
The process of order fulfillment is one of the most common stumbling blocks in crowdfunding. Many well-intentioned creators will have the goods shipped in bulk to their homes, where they plan to apply shipping labels and ship everything themselves.
This can work but it gets really tedious after about 100 orders. It is nearly impossible to do in a timely manner once you have more than 500.
The alternative is simple: find order fulfillment companies. Often called third-party logistics companies (3PLs), they specialize in storing items, packing them into boxes, applying labels, and shipping them out.
It’s like your own personal Amazon warehouse for hire.
Unique Challenges of Crowdfunding
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one small hangup. Many 3PLs do not want to work with crowdfunding campaigns.
They instead prefer to work with established businesses and eCommerce companies. For that reason, we’ve taken our usual list of solid 3PLs and narrowed it down to include only companies that work with crowdfunding campaigners.
I’d like to recommend a few good services for Indiegogo order fulfillment. Every single one of these is on Kickstarter’s Resources page, which is a ringing endorsement.
Let’s get started!
1. Fulfillrite
Full disclosure here, everyone: I am a marketing consultant for Fulfillrite.
Fulfillrite is really good at shipping crowdfunding campaigns and deserves a mention. The folks who run CrowdCrux can vouch for Fulfillrite, as can clients who leave reviews on Trustpilot.
Services include same-day shipping and real-time order and inventory tracking. You send your inventory to Fulfillrite, and they ship everything out to all your backers on your behalf.
There are a lot of benefits to this, including:
- Saves time and resources
- Gives you the ability to quickly scale your business
- Reduced shipping costs
- Seamless integration with Indiegogo and e-Commerce sites like Shopify and WooCommerce
Everyone who works with Fulfillrite will also be given a dedicated account manager. If something goes wrong, you have an individual you can reach out to instead of a support line or help desk.
This is really useful for crowdfunding campaigns!
If you are interested in working with Fulfillrite to fulfill your Indiegogo campaign, reach out today to get started.
2. EasyShip
EasyShip is not, strictly speaking, a fulfillment company. However, EasyShip is really useful for helping you get coordinated when it comes to supply chain work.
EasyShip is a cloud software company that can help you find a lot of resources you need to ship an Indiegogo campaign. This includes several warehouse partner integrations to help your items get stored, picked, packed, and shipped.
So what all can EasyShip help you with? There are seven key areas that apply to Indiegogo campaigns:
- Shipping management so you can manage and automate logistics for all sales channels with one tool.
- Finding couriers – EasyShip shows shipping rates from over 250 couriers, helping you find the best price on postage.
- Platform integrations to help you make stores and ERP tools talk to one another.
- Global fulfillment – find and coordinate between different warehouses so your backers get what they want quickly.
- Tax and duties assistance – accurately estimate tax and duty prices before shipping internationally.
- International expansion – As a result of the above items, EasyShip is really good at helping companies get ready for scaling internationally.
- Managing brand experience – sending automated messages, including tracking information, to backers, regardless of whether their items are being shipped from, from a single location
3. FloShip
Floship has an impressive record and boasts the ability to ship crowdfunding campaigns to 180 countries. Major crowdfunding campaigns such as Tropicfeel and Wolf Project have used FloShip to send out rewards for their crowdfunding campaigns.
FloShip operates on a massive scale, and that can come with a lot of advantages. Some benefits of using FloShip include:
- Custom-tailored fulfillment solutions, especially for cross-border shipping
- Detailed cost forecasting for warehousing, packaging, customs, and more
- Fulfillment centers on 3 continents
- Relationships with 30 regional, national, and international air and freight couriers
- Real-time tracking
- Transparent pricing
4. ShipBob
ShipBob is a giant in the world of fulfillment, and it’s for good reason. With multiple warehouses across the US, ShipBob is able to offer:
- A 99.95% accuracy rate on order fulfillment
- 99.89% on-time delivery
- Over 5,000 eCommerce partners
It should be noted that ShipBob primarily serves eCommerce companies. However, they are included on the Kickstarter Resources page under fulfillment services and are able to ship orders for crowdfunding campaigns.
5. Whiplash
Whiplash is a well-regarded third-party logistics company with a heart for startups and small businesses. In addition to shipping for eCommerce, Whiplash also offers order fulfillment for crowdfunding campaigns as well.
Some benefits of using Whiplash include:
- Straightforward pricing that starts at $2.50 per order with no hidden fees
- An easy-to-use platform with real-time tracking and history
- Integrations with eCommerce such as Shopify and BigCommerce, should you choose to go into eCommerce after your campaign
- Multiple fulfillment centers around the US
Conclusion
Fulfilling orders for your Indiegogo campaign doesn’t need to be hard! There are a lot of great companies that can help you deliver on the promises you made during your crowdfunding campaign.
This article is a springboard and I hope that you are able to take this and determine which direction to go in from here. Consider getting quotes from all of these companies and continuing to do your research.
If you feel good about the prices and the folks you end up speaking with, then you might just have a great partnership in the future!
Need help fulfilling your orders? Click here to request a quote from Fulfillrite.
Brandon Rollins is a Marketing Consultant at Fulfillrite. His main areas of expertise are online marketing and supply chain management. He also runs Pangea Marketing Agency and writes for Marketing is the Product.
