We're Partnering with Easyship to Make Shipping Less of a Headache
Shipping Kickstarter rewards can be a massive undertaking for projects of any size. We've partnered with Easyship to make it simpler and more cost effective. Plus, we're launching some important new fulfillment tools you'll want to learn about.
Hi, I’m Elena, and I'm a Senior Product Manager here at Kickstarter, focused on Creator Experience. I'm excited to let you know about some important work we've been doing that will help both creators and backers by making reward fulfillment easier, less expensive, and more streamlined.
Manage Shipping Easily, at a Discount
Today we are launching our new partnership with Easyship, which will give Kickstarter creators access to a range of tools and services to make shipping more convenient and more affordable. Easyship is a shipping platform that greatly simplifies the process of managing and coordinating shipping anywhere in the world.
Anyone who has run a Kickstarter project knows how complex shipping can be. Plus, the cost of shipping can require up to 20% of a campaign's budget. Easyship offers access to discounted shipping rates, as well as tools that help you budget for shipping, compare courier rates, calculate tax and duty costs, automatically prepare customs paperwork, create labels, send tracking information to backers, and track shipments—all through a single dashboard.
I especially recommend that you check out the Easyship Collect feature, which enables you to charge for shipping after your campaign has ended, and to offer upgraded shipping options to backers when you're ready to send their rewards out. This tool is free to use for Kickstarter users exclusively.
Easyship also has a dedicated crowdfunding team that is available to help you work through your shipping questions. Their team is experienced in supporting crowdfunding campaigns of all sizes.
Through our partnership, you get access to waived Easyship membership fees, discounted shipping rates, and a free consultation. Qualifying campaigns can also receive free shipping credits. To get started, visit our dedicated sign-up page or click one of the sign-up links you'll see throughout the Kickstarter site.
Updates to Backer Reports and Fulfillment Reports
Speaking of improving the fulfillment experience, I'm also happy to let you know about some updates we will be launching for creators very soon.
- In the Backer Report page, we're adding a filter to enable creators to communicate with backers who have made pledges for specific reward add-ons. This is a feature creators have asked for frequently, as it has previously been cumbersome to communicate with only a subset of backers who has pledged for a specific add-on. As part of this work, we're also refreshing the design of the Backer Report page to make it easier to navigate (and to set us up better as we roll out other enhancements down the road).
- We're also adding three new reports to the Fulfillment page to make reward production and fulfillment easier for creators. The new Item Level summary will be useful for creators in determining how many items need to be produced for their campaign, while the Reward and Add-on summaries will help creators prepare their rewards for shipping.
Read about other improvements we’ve recently made to Kickstarter:
Terry VanDuyn
