When it comes to talking about crowdfunding one thing we rarely discuss is what happens long after the campaign ends and the developer is ready to send out all the physical goodies promised. While I have not personally ran any campaigns myself I have seen a number of projects that I’ve backed struggle with getting their stuff out of the door and into the hands of all of their fans, which is where Fulfillrite comes into play. For years, pretty much since Kickstarter launched, they’ve been helping project creators get their product out of the door as painlessly and cheaply as possible so as to not have to dip too far into their campaign funds.
According to their Web site, Fulfillrite does more than just helping with Kickstarter or IndieGogo rewards fulfillment and have partnered with numerous online platforms. In the case of this article my focus will be on crowdfunding but it looks like the basics are more or less the same regardless if you use Kickstarter or Amazon. And, speaking of partners, as of about two years ago they’ve also started working with BackerKit to make the process even more streamlined, but more on that in a bit.
Having had so much experience with crowdfunding Fulfillrite seems like the perfect fit to offer shipping options on top of giving useful advice as to how to run a successful campaign. According to the site, “We are well versed and experienced in the challenges crowdfunding may present and offer not only seamless rewards fulfillment, but also guidance throughout the campaign process.” Having six years of experience, it makes me wonder why I haven’t heard of them before now. Maybe it’s because they’re so behind-the-scenes that actually how rewards are shipped are often overlooked by even hardcore backers like myself.
The fact that Fulfillrite has partnered with BackerKit has lent credence to the company as I have been a fan of their own services for a long time. While BackerKit tends to make preparing shipping simple and elegant it’s Fulfillrite that does the heavy lifting, so to speak. With both sites working together this should theoretically very much work in the favor of the project creator. And I have yet to hear any horror stories from those using either service so I’m quite certain that something’s working here.
The one thing that really stood out for me was how dedicated Fulfillrite is towards the crowdfunding community. I had been in contact with Charlie to get some more in-depth information regarding their offerings towards those running Kickstarter or IndieGogo campaigns and this is what he had to say:
“Yes we offer deeply discounted fulfillment rates specially for crowdfunding projects and free storage for all campaign for the duration of the project itself (1-months), as well we pass along our negotiated discounted shipping rates with USPS and FedEx to help them further save and be able to keep profits and continue growing…”
The fact that they’re willing to match their own discounts with shipping companies like FedEx and share the savings with project creators is most assuredly a plus in my book. I know that shipping does not come cheap, but consider bulk shipping hundreds or even thousands of packages. The costs add up. While I still don’t know a whole lot about Fulfillrite what I do know makes me feel that they’re definitely on the right track towards helping make crowdfunding dreams come true; even if it’s so far behind-the-scenes I just heard about them now.
Never heard of them either! Know about Backerkit obviously – good for backers but the implication from those running Kickstarter projects is they take a decent cut of the funds raised.