When it comes to crowdfunding your product on a platform like Indiegogo or Kickstarter, it’s never too soon to begin planning for shipping. Having a game plan for shipping your product ensures that you don’t get caught scrambling, and will allow you to answer questions about shipping early on. Below are some quick and easy steps to take that we’ve seen help campaigns be a success.
A few things we always recommend
- Make shipping to the US and Canada free. Many large companies like Amazon have made “free US shipping” an expectation. Working against this expectation could cause major backlash. By allowing free shipping to the US and Canada, you easily avoid this potential problem.
- Ship worldwide. Many of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns have around 50% of their total campaign raise from countries other than the US. Don’t limit yourself!
If worldwide shipping is not an option, then we recommend at least shipping to the following countries, in order of overall number of contributions:
Very Strongly Recommended (in order of preference):
- United States
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- Germany (an EU Country)
- Japan
Strongly Recommended (in order of preference):
- Singapore
- Hong Kong
- Korea, Republic of
- Netherlands
- France (EU)
- Switzerland (EU)
- China
Recommended (sorted Alphabetically):
- Austria
- Belgium
- Chile
- Czech Republic
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Israel
- Malaysia
- Mexico
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Russian Federation
- Uganda
- United Arab Emirates
For Indiegogo specifically, here’s what you’ll need to know:
- Shipping costs can only be whole dollar amounts ($1, not $1.50)
- Indiegogo allows campaigns to offer shipping on a per-country basis or at a worldwide/rest of the world flat rate.
- Here is a short, quick walkthrough of how to add shipping per perk.
- Here is a longer, in-depth walkthrough of how to add shipping price and countries.
It’s important to note that most Indiegogo campaigns offer shipping in a tiered fashion. For example:
- USA, Canada – Free
- EU, UK, Australia – X
- Rest of the world – Y
If you are not able to run with free shipping, we recommend at least keeping your shipping prices as low as possible. Remember, locking down these details early on in campaign will save you a headache down the line!