Crowdfunding is certainly not an easy or simple task. You have to work on everything from designing the product to manufacturing it. Then, you need to raise the funds to start your product. But once you have completed all these steps, the final task you face is shipping the products to your customers and backers. This is where fulfillment center services come in to help you with your crowdfunding campaign.

What is a fulfillment center?

Before that, let us talk about what fulfillment really means in e-commerce.

Basically, fulfillment services are services that essentially cover everything you need to ship your products to your customers – from warehousing to shipping and, finally, last-mile delivery. Fulfillment services also cover the in-between of these processes, such as customs clearance, real-time tracking, and even integration of the fulfillment services with major e-commerce platforms.

Needless to say, each of these processes is not simple. Therefore, working with a fulfillment center will be of great help to your business!

How Can Fulfillment Center Services Help Crowdfunding Campaigns?

Now, you have a basic understanding of what fulfillment is. By this point, it’s quite easier now to see how fulfillment can play a role in crowdfunding campaigns.

While a crowdfunding campaign’s model is different from a regular e-commerce model, fulfillment services can still play a role in crowdfunding campaigns by helping the campaign ship its products to its customers and backers.

In crowdfunding campaigns, this is basically how fulfillment works: once you have designed your product and raised enough funds to produce your products and create an inventory for them, you can ship your product to your fulfillment center. From there, your fulfillment center will take care of the shipping – from customs clearance and real-time tracking to last-mile delivery and even product returns if the situation calls for it. Now, let us break that one by one.

1) Warehousing in a fulfillment center

The first thing you must do before you ship your products is to have a warehouse to temporarily keep them. This is why warehousing is an essential and basic part of a fulfillment service.

Once you delivered your products to your fulfillment center, they will take care of them – from regular sanitation to proper inspection – until orders have been received. Once the orders were received, they will dispatch your products to the shipping lines.

While warehousing seems to be a basic process, it is still crucial: mistakes such as dispatching your product to the wrong shipping line or even a lack of care for the products in the warehouse would hurt your business. Therefore, make sure that you are working with a fulfillment center that has the proper work ethic when it comes to warehousing and, of course, for the overall service.

2) Documentation

Documentation is the part that many e-commerce entrepreneurs have a hard time dealing with – and for very understandable reasons. The need to process different paperwork is in itself already confusing. Then there are the different charges and fees that you need to settle so that you can ship your products to another country.

A good fulfillment center will not only help you process the necessary documents but will also help you lessen your charges and fees whenever and wherever it is possible.

3) Shipping options

Fulfillment centers are usually partnered with different shipping lines. Hence, you’ll have some options as to which lines to ship your product with. Keep in mind that different shipping lines and couriers have their own specific features, so choose the shipping line and courier that will work best for your crowdfunding campaign.

4) Tracking

Of course, shipping will not go without tracking. Needless to say, it is very important that you track your packages in real-time. A good fulfillment center service will allow you to track your products from the warehouse to last-mile delivery.

5) Integration

Finally, a good fulfillment center service understands that many of its customers work with major platforms. For instance, in e-commerce, many entrepreneurs work with platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce. But how about crowdfunding campaigns?

Mostly, fulfillment centers that offer crowdfunding fulfillment would integrate with platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo because most of their customers are simply using them. And if you’re wondering, Fulfillmen does integrate with Kickstarter and Indiegogo!

Let Fulfillmen Help You With Your Crowdfunding Campaign!

Here at Fulfillmen, we are dedicated to helping our customers grow their businesses – be it a regular e-commerce business or a crowdfunding campaign.

If you have any questions regarding crowdfunding fulfillment, we would love to hear your questions and inquiries. To do so, you may contact us by clicking here