As you build your plan to launch your crowdfunding campaign, one of the things you will need to care for is shipping and handling. How are you going to handle overseas shipments? What happens if someone moves in between the time they become a backer and you are finally ready to deliver a finished product? Will you accept returns if people are not satisfied with your product? Even some of the best crowdfunding campaigns have to deal with issues around shipping and handling.
Take a look at the Kickstarter campaign for “The Wonderland Book” by Kirsty Mitchell Photography and see some of the issues she faced trying to deliver her book. Kristy raised 334K British Pounds to fund a high quality photographic book in memory of her mother. The project got a total of 2,399 backers and was ready to start shipping at the end of December 2015. In a comment to her backers she writes “…. to my horror I learned that ILG our distribution company in its final rush to get all your Wonderland books sent out on time for Christmas made a mistake with 350 of the 2000 signed books.” This snafu by the distribution company led to many of her backers not receiving their signed copy of the book on time.
In addition to the shipping delay for some of the books, Kristy Mitchell had to make plenty of arrangements with her backers to get the books delivered correctly. In an update posted on December 21, 2015, this message was posted “To try and keep all our customers informed about their orders we have added a few new pages to our website. We hope you find the following links helpful; Shipping Updates; Lookup shipping status; Lookup order status.” If you read some of those pages on the kirstymitchellphotography.com website, you’ll note that updates were being posted frequently and covered topics like arrival dates, invoices and tracking and changing or confirming shipping address.
For your crowdfunding campaign, you will also need to put a good deal of thought into how you are handle customer fulfillment and what you will do when something goes wrong. Keep in mind that the more backers you have the more problems you will face as it gets time to deliver your finished product. Some of the things you should plan for include:
- Handling shipments for international orders (is shipping going to be extra)
- Obtaining the correct shipping address (remember some people will move)
- Making arrangements for delayed shipments (in case your customers are away from home for an extended period of time)
- Ensuring your international customers are reachable by telephone (in case customs in their country requires import clearance)
- Providing a method for your customers to track shipping and delivery status online
- Having someone available to answer the phone and email as questions arise during this period
- Giving updates on your website, Facebook page, Twitter and Crowdfunding platform
The Kristy Mitchell Photography website has a lot of good information you can reference so that you are well prepared to give your backers the best possible experience.
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