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Why isn't anyone building order fulfillment app/tool for Kickstarter campaigns

5 points by drwl ↗ HN
After looking at a bunch of kickstarter campaigns that got funded, the same trends seem to occur. Order fulfillment is really bad. Doing a quick google search, the only 'competition' I see is:

http://www.fulfillrite.com/Kickstarter-Order-Fulfillment.htm

and even then, I mean... Examples of backers who would like their product

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/trygger/trygger-camera-case-iphone-4-4s-polarizing-filter/comments http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-portable-scann/comments http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hand/hand-stylus/comments food for thought

3 comments

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dangrossman
There's Amazon Fulfillment. You ship them your stock and they'll pick & ship all the orders. The orders don't have to come from Amazon.com, there's a web interface and API for sending the customers to ship to. What I don't know is if you can do that without listing the product in their marketplace at all.
iSloth
You certainly can use FBA without listing on the Amazon market place, it's actually covered in their FAQ:

"Can I use Fulfilment by Amazon if I don t sell on the Amazon.co.uk website? Yes. You can ship your product units to us, and we will pick, pack and deliver the items to your customers when you tell us to. This allows you to sell your products on other platforms but still take advantage of Amazon’s fulfilment centres and our experience in shipping products."

Source [1]; http://services.amazon.co.uk/services/fulfilment-by-amazon/f...

Fulfillrite
At Fulfillrite we are dedicated to working with Kickstarter projects to make them successful post Kickstarter & beyond. The challenges projects face are very unique. Such as: The usually don't know what to anticipate, some projects have been been successful way beyond what the project directors imagined. The next challenge is that usually at that beyond besides order fulfillment they need advice/assistance in many other areas. From signing up to a fulfillment center to the point of shipping in most cases takes weeks/months due to manufacturing delays or otherwise. At fulfillrite we are fully devoted to helping these projects succeed in all areas we can help even if it takes weeks or months. Our team will help you with anything you need. Most order fulfillment centers will just tell you to call them back when you have the products. We look at it as teamwork - to help you succeed.

We also offer all Kickstarter projects a generous discount on all the projects order fulfillment costs since we know they are working on low margins & already share a chunk of their profits with Kickstarter.

In response dangrossman: Kickstarter doesn't offer any functionality/ features (excluding some basic help pages) to Kickstarter projects other than providing the platform to raise money. Once you're done your it's all up to you to figure out the manufacturing & logistics of running a successful business in the real world. The only option they offer for exporting your orders is a csv file export. It would be great if they would allow third party solutions such as ours to offer direct integrations, etc...