A term almost unheard of a just decade ago, crowdfunding has rapidly become a go-to method for entrepreneurs to access capital and draw attention to their product. Last year, $9 billion was raised on crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo in the US alone.
Such platforms have become excellent showrooms for a wide variety of innovative products not available anywhere else, and successful campaigns are living proof that there is an inherent demand for any given product and that it will most likely sell well once the campaign is over and the product is available to a much broader audience. Over and above raising much needed cash, a beneficial side effect of a crowdfunding campaign is that it allows the creator to assess how their product will be perceived by the market more broadly.
However, a successful campaign brings with it a range of operational and logistical challenges, not least that of the nuts and bolt of fulfillment and actually getting the goods out to the customer quickly, efficiently and cost effectively.
The entrepreneurs behind a successful campaign will have more than enough on their to-do list without having to worry about this mundane but critical element of their campaign, and might not have the staff or space that are needed. With this in mind, both they and their new customers are probably better served by outsourcing this work to a 3PL company like us.
We are currently working with a number of successful crowdfunders, by effectively acting as their remote fulfillment and logistics partner. Ways in which we help include getting pre-orders to customers quickly and efficiently, picking, packing and shipping orders when they come through, handling returns, and dealing with customer queries by phone and email through our in-house contact center.
Being located in the UK, we can not only help British and other European companies, but also help companies located outside the EU get their product to European customers much more quickly and cheaply than by shipping from overseas.
By working with us, the entrepreneurs behind a successful crowdfunding campaign will be able to devote their precious time to developing their new fledgling business by leveraging the skill-set that was required to make the campaign a success in the first place.
