Collection Shipping Kickstarter rewards
A project's success on Kickstarter often comes with unanticipated challenges, including fulfilling rewards and backorders. Here are resources to help Kickstarters ship products successfully.
Kickstarter Fulfillment Guide
Shipwire has helped many crowdsourced projects ship rewards and backorders
This guide is designed to walk Kickstarter campaigns through shipping rewards and products to domestic and international backers.
Read the White Paper- White Paper
- 12 pages
- free
Kickstart Your Idea
Learn how to turn your Kickstarter idea into a tangible, market-ready product
- White Paper
- 13 pages
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Rift Labs
After a successful launch on Kickstarter, Rift Labs looked to Shipwire to outsource order fulfillment
- Case Study
- Rift Labs
Kickstarter fulfillment services & order shipping
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Receiving Guide
Learn how to send products to a Shipwire warehouse
- Product Guide
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Shipwire and Kickstarter
Over the years, Shipwire has helped many Kickstarter projects ship backorders and bring products to market. As a strong supporter of emerging businesses, we love to see you succeed. On this page, learn best practices and find tools to help make the logistics of crowdsourced projects as smooth as possible.
Why Kickstarter projects deliver late
Kickstarter projects are infamous for delivering late — in fact, a 2012 study of the top 50 Kickstarter campaigns found that only eight shipped on time. In the platform’s earlier years, it was understood and widely accepted that the crowdsourced platform was a place to help people transform their dreams and ideas into reality and backers were understanding of the challenges these new entrepreneurs faced, often unexpectedly.
These days, though, Kickstarter campaigns often raise such high monetary support that people forget they are sponsoring teams and individuals who are often brand new to running a business. Kickstarter entrepreneurs are commonly regarded as startup founders and are expected to bring their products to market efficiently and without glitches. Backers want completed products delivered on time and eagerly await their awards, and when this fails to happen, message boards spread the word far and wide.
Why is it that so many Kickstarters fall behind in finishing products and shipping rewards? It’s often due to uncapped and unexpected success. When a team’s fundraising goal is exceeded by 200 percent, production and manufacturing can quickly turn from a piecemeal undertaking to a task requiring professional tools and assistance. More funding usually means more backer rewards to ship, and the logistics of distribution quickly become more than just a few trips to the post office.
How to avoid late delivery
The smart way to approach a Kickstarter campaign is to plan for all outcomes, including higher-than-expected funding. Do some research about how to handle shipping high volumes of product and consider the time and resources it could require — the resources on this page will be helpful in guiding you through these thought processes.
And if it’s too late for advanced planning and you’re already looking at thousands of backorders, Shipwire can still help. Shipwire’s Kickstarter Fulfillment Services was designed to be easy to use and fast to set up. Don’t hesitate to reach out, we’re happy to help!
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