What's up with international shipping on Kickstarter?!?

[Jan van Leyden]

The best idea so far seems to handle it like Evil Hat is doing for Designers & Dragons: shipping will be charged separately after the Kickstarter using Backerkit or any other website for fulfillment of kickstarters.

That way shipping doesn't screw your numbers during the campaign and you can have international orders. You just have to be very careful when calculating shipping costs so backers know what to expect more or less.

This way you only shift the liability to the supporter. "OK, I buy this book for $40, but don't have the slightest idea how expensive it will finally be."

Add the fact that a lot of Kickstarter projects are way behind schedule. Say, I support project for $40 + shipping to Europe. I research the possible cost and calculate $20 for shipping; the thing would cost me $60. But what if the promised delivery date shifts from November 2014 to November 2015 which increases the shipping cost from $20 to $30?

For me personally this just means that besides not knowing what I will get and when, I either don't know how much it will cost me. Not very attractive...

 

[Vicente]

This way you only shift the liability to the supporter. "OK, I buy this book for $40, but don't have the slightest idea how expensive it will finally be."

Add the fact that a lot of Kickstarter projects are way behind schedule. Say, I support project for $40 + shipping to Europe. I research the possible cost and calculate $20 for shipping; the thing would cost me $60. But what if the promised delivery date shifts from November 2014 to November 2015 which increases the shipping cost from $20 to $30?

For me personally this just means that besides not knowing what I will get and when, I either don't know how much it will cost me. Not very attractive...

I didn't say it was attractive, I said it's the best option of the three possibilities available. The other two are:

- No international backers.
- Trying to guess how much of the campaign you are going to have to spend in international shipping.

First possibility is definitively worse than paying for shipping later. Some people may want the product no matter what, so better to give them the possibility.

Second possibility is also worse IMHO. First, you have to artificially raise the cost of making your product to account for a logistic issue not related to it. Raising that cost makes the probability of funding lower, increases the spread of stretch goals... And if you guess that number wrong (which is very easy), you have just throw all the campaign into a very dangerous position.

Paying for shipping later adds more uncertainty for some backers, and they have to decide if that's something they can accept (including a possible rise of shipping between the KS and the release), but for the overall campaign, it's the best idea.

Regards!

 

[Piratecat]

TimeWatch is getting shipped to Canada via England -- we're putting pallets on a ship to the UK, then flying them to Canada -- and it's STILL cheaper than shipping from the US to Canada. Completely ludicrous. It literally costs me the retail price of the book to ship to Canada. Irksome, to say the least.

Monte Cook is charging international people the actual shipping cost after-the-fact and holding their books until they pay it. That way seems to lie madness, but I'll be following his success closely.

 

[RangerWickett]

How about hiring a coyote to smuggle the books into Canada in an RV, then mailing them from within the country?

 

[Piratecat]

How about hiring a coyote to smuggle the books into Canada in an RV, then mailing them from within the country?

I tried. Friggin' thing used them in some sort of absurd anti-roadrunner trap, then got crushed when they fell on him and spontaneously combusted. Now I'm back to square one.

(Seriously, I'm looking into trying to bulk ship them to a Canadian distribution house. It's trickier than I'd expected.)

 

[Dumnbunny]

Personally, shipping costs to Canada have lead to me passing on a number of Kickstarters. I am occasionally willing to pay $40 - $45 for shipping, but the RPG has to be at the very top of my buy-list, a must-have that I will directly, frequently use. That's a pretty short list.

I didn't say it was attractive, I said it's the best option of the three possibilities available. The other two are:

- No international backers.
- Trying to guess how much of the campaign you are going to have to spend in international shipping.

Another option is POD. A number of Kickstarters have gone that route with some significant savings for their international backers. Roughly $15 shipping puts the RPGs pretty close to impulse-buy range, depending on the cost of the book itself, especially since I can add another book or two when I actually place the order.

TimeWatch is getting shipped to Canada via England -- we're putting pallets on a ship to the UK, then flying them to Canada -- and it's STILL cheaper than shipping from the US to Canada. Completely ludicrous. It literally costs me the retail price of the book to ship to Canada. Irksome, to say the least.

Nicely done. I've seen some UK-based Kickstarters ship to their Canadian backers from the US. I can't recall which ones off-hand; when I saw how they were handling shipping, I put it out of my mind and moved on.

Monte Cook is charging international people the actual shipping cost after-the-fact and holding their books until they pay it. That way seems to lie madness, but I'll be following his success closely.

With Monte's Kickstarters I also have the very attractive option of just skipping the Kickstarter all together and buying the game when it hits retail. I'm also going this route with Designers & Dragons. Not everyone is Monte or Evil Hat, and won't have this option of course.

 

[Vicente]

Another option is POD. A number of Kickstarters have gone that route with some significant savings for their international backers. Roughly $15 shipping puts the RPGs pretty close to impulse-buy range, depending on the cost of the book itself, especially since I can add another book or two when I actually place the order.

Good call here. Sine Nomine Publishing does this and it seems to have worked very well for Kevin.