What Is Crowdfunding Fulfillment Services?

The work of a successful crowdfunding campaign isn’t complete until you have rewards in the hands of your backers—which relies on efficient order fulfillment and shipping.

The fulfillment process for crowdfunding ventures is similar to that of traditional ecommerce stores. It involves receiving shipments, storing them, processing orders, and shipping them to customers.

How Does A Crowdfunding Fulfillment Service Work Exactly?

When you outsource to a crowdfunding fulfillment service, you simply send them your inventory of backer rewards, and let them take care of the rest. Your 3PL services company will manage the storing, picking, packing, kitting, and shipping of rewards, ensuring that they reach your campaign’s backers quickly and efficiently. A leading crowdfunding fulfillment service like Global Response 3PL uses the most cutting-edge technology to provide you with total transparency, and the ability to track your products and deliveries in real-time.

Here, we will break down the steps to explain exactly how a crowdfunding service works:

• An entrepreneur or business develops an innovative new product, service or idea.
• A crowdfunding campaign is launched on a site like Kickstarter or IndieGogo to raise the capital needed to bring the idea to life.
• Money is raised, and now rewards must be sent to the individuals who backed the campaign.
• The campaign creator partners with a crowdfunding fulfillment service, and ships its inventory of backer rewards to them.
• Once received, the fulfillment services partner will sort and store the rewards in their warehouse.
• Rewards will be picked, packed, kitted (if necessary), and sent out to the campaign backers.
• Campaign supporters receive their reward and are excited!

Calculating Fulfillment Costs

The expenses involved in the above processes—inbound transportation, storage, packaging, and shipping—combine to represent the total fulfillment cost of your crowdfunding project.

For many entrepreneurs, this cost—coupled with the time-intensive nature of fulfillment—can be hard to swallow. Outsourcing the fulfillment process to a third-party provider is a way to save both money and time.

Outsourcing Crowdfunding Fulfillment

Crowdfunding projects can outsource the processes of order fulfillment to a specialty provider. These companies receive, sort, and store your inventory in strategically located warehouses—then package and ship them to your customers.

Read our guide to third-party fulfillment companies to learn more.

Hiring a third-party company offers many advantages. Here are some of the ways outsourced fulfillment can benefit your crowdfunding venture:

• Reduced costs: As compared to the price of performing in-house fulfillment in your own rented warehouse, outsourced fulfillment is much more economical. Plus, thanks to volume discounts and long-standing business relationships with carriers, most third-party companies provide you with much better shipping rates than you could get on your own.
• Time management: Order fulfillment requires a lot of time. Outsourcing this step of the supply chain allows you to redirect those hours toward more growth-minded tasks. Similarly, if you plan on hiring staff members to perform fulfillment for you, using a fulfillment company instead saves you the hassle of doing payroll and managing a team.
• Efficiency: Fulfillment companies have well-developed infrastructure dedicated to the processes of order fulfillment. This usually includes multiple warehouses, well-trained staff, advanced security systems, and accuracy protocols—which make the fulfillment process as precise and efficient as possible.
• Location: When running an in-house operation, much of your shipping costs will depend on where you are located in relation to your customers. If your orders come from all over the country, a fulfillment provider with multiple strategic locations will get your goods into customers’ hands much faster—and cheaper.
• Platform Integration: Most fulfillment providers that work with crowdfunding ventures have the ability to sync up with the crowdfunding platform you use. This enables painless onboarding and easy transmission of backer info.

Partner with us for Crowdfunding Fulfillment Services

In need of Crowdfunding Fulfillment Services? If yes, you can contact us today to get the best  Crowdfunding Fulfillment Services you want.

Merry Christmas and a Fruitful New Year Ahead

From all of us here, we want to use this medium to say a big thank you for your support and patronage in the outgoing year. We look forward to more partnership with you in the incoming and beyond.

With the joy of the season, we are wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas Celebration and a Prosperous New Year ahead.