KickstarterForum.org

Read the entire post here: http://www.crowdcrux.com/kickstarter-mi ... lfillment/

So you’ve spent a grueling 30-60 days constantly marketing and promoting your Kickstarter project. Let’s be honest, your time commitment was probably more than that. When you take the months of preparation into account, the time it takes to get together a great video, high quality images, compelling copywriting, and well-defined reward tiers, you’ve invested a significant portion of the last few months into the single goal of raising enough funds to make your dream a reality.

Wouldn’t it be horrible if after putting yourself out there and dedicating all that time towards preparing and marketing your project, you actually lost money from your Kickstarter project? Failing to incorporate a buffer into the project fundraising goal for miscellaneous or unforeseen expenses could put you in the red if the cost of fulfilling a large volume of rewards happens to be only slightly higher than estimated.

According to Kickstarter, “Kickstarter’s Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.” At this point in time, you could forfeit the funds raised or continue on with the project and lose money. With your reputation at stake, possible negotiations underway with suppliers, and any press attention you have attracted, it can be difficult to do the former. The common mistakes below will help you stay out of the red and stay in the black when it comes to reward fulfillment.

1. Not Using Kickstarter Surveys
Kickstarter Surveys are there to help you collect necessary information before you begin spending the funds raised to fulfill reward tiers. Aside from gathering accurate mailing addresses, these surveys can be used to estimate the ratio of product variation among your backers.

For example, if one of your reward tiers is a t-shirt with your company logo, the size of the t-shirt is a variable that can significantly differ across your backer population. If you need to fulfill 100 t-shirt orders, Kickstarter surveys can help you minimize the risk of overstocking and spending more funds than needed. I would recommend using Kickstarter surveys for any reward fulfillment variable to avoid overspending.

You may realize that sometimes the costs for the same reward tier will differ. Using the t-shirt example, if you raise $20 per t-shirt reward tier and need to fulfill each of these orders, the large and extra large t-shirts will end up eating up more of your budget than the small t-shirts in terms of supplier and shipping costs. If you have a large campaign, the cost per unit is multiplied and you can easily end up spending more than you may like if you do not budget for the variable costs that can be incurred for a reward tier.