Yesterday we launched the preorder for Wingspan Oceania, the new expansion for Wingspan. As with all of our preorders, we’ve already made the product, and it will begin shipping to preorder customers within a few weeks. It’s a preorder on our Shopify webstore, not a Kickstarter project.
As I write this on Thursday, we’re still accepting preorders, but there’s a lot of data to share already, especially because we originally announced this expansion back in January to offer support to the wildfire relief efforts in Australia (for each email we collected by January 22, Stonemaier Games donated $1 to WIRES, a wildlife rescue organization in Australia. Our total donation was $7,439 USD ($10,834 AUD). The launch notification signup remained live for the next 9 months–I’ll come back to that in a minute.
Demand Forecasting
To ensure that we made enough copies of Wingspan Oceania to cover first-run demand, I used a few data points. First, I contacted distributors and retailers in May (before production began) to get some relatively firm numbers. Second, I looked at how many units we sold directly during the Wingspan European preorder (5,848 units). Last, I looked at total Wingspan units in print (at the time, over 400,000 units of the core game compared to 100,000 units of Wingspan European). As a result, I decided that the first English print run of Wingspan Oceania would be just over 55,000 units, the biggest first run of any product in Stonemaier Games history.
Launch Notification Requests
With around 10,000 of those units set aside for Stonemaier Games direct orders (and the rest for distributors), I thought we’d be fine, especially since that number was close to the number of launch notification requests we received through most of 2020. But in early October I started posting design diaries and information about the expansion, and those requests started to climb. By mid-October, we had nearly 20,000 launch notification requests.
By this point, we had already shipped the expansion from Panda to direct-ship distributors (distributors sell games to retailers in their respective regions) and our fulfillment centers (warehouses in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia that ship our webstore orders to customers). I was particularly concerned that we hadn’t sent enough units to Australia, given the theme of this expansion.
So I sent an message last week to the nearly 20,000 people who had signed up for a launch notification to see how many of them actually planned to preorder the expansion from Stonemaier Games. Here are the results:
My suspicions were true. Normally, the order from greatest to least is US, Europe, Canada, Australia. But due to the nature of this expansion, the order was looking to be US, Australia/NZ, Europe, Canada.
Even though it was a little too late for the ocean freight shipment, this data allowed us to initiate an air freight of one extra pallet to our fulfillment center in Australia to cover the extra demand in Australia/NZ.
Time Zone Concerns
However, around this same time last week, another issue was brought up by a few people in Australia/NZ: Our preorders launch at 9:30 am CT (St. Louis time). Guess what time that is in Sydney? 1:30 am. In Auckland? 3:30 am. For the Wingspan Oceania, people in Oceania were going to be asleep when the preorder opened.
So I tried something new: I contacted people in Australia/NZ who shared their email in the above survey and told them that I would quietly open preorders for them on Tuesday evening my time (around lunchtime on Wednesday in Oceania). They had a direct link that would work as long as the quantity of the expansion in Oceania was available. As far as I can tell, this seemed to work well–a number of people contacted me to say that they appreciated not needing to wake up in the middle of the night to place an order.
Final Results for Day One
Were all of these precautions necessary? Let’s look at the results over the first 24 hours, including the Tuesday preorder window for Australia/NZ: During that time, we sold just over 8300 units of Wingspan Oceania on our webstore. That’s over 3000 more units than the first day of Wingspan European preorders. Orders in Australia/NZ did end up being higher than Canadian orders, but despite the above survey, orders in Europe were higher than the Australia/NZ total.
Conclusions
I think all of this is a good reminder that there’s always going to be a gap–perhaps a significant gap–between the number of people who say they’re going to order from you (or back your project) and the number of people who actually place orders. This is one of the reasons demand forecasting is so difficult for any print run of any product, even when you’re in close communication with those most likely to order it.
Other Notes
- One of our biggest concerns going into the preorder was the capacity of our US fulfillment center, especially since the fulfillment for Wingspan Oceania will overlap with the holiday season. We established a solid plan with them to sort the preorders into batches designed to optimize fulfillment speed (with Stonemaier Champion orders shipping first). However, in all of our communications we tried to make it abundantly clear that the preorder fulfillment will be a 2-month process, just to set expectations up front.
- Despite informing our website hosting service, HostPresto, in advance that they needed to be ready for an influx of traffic on our server yesterday, the website still crashed a few minutes before I sent our e-newsletter announcing the preorder launch. Fortunately, our Shopify webstore is separate from our website, and it was working fine. This was still quite frustrating, and we’re talking to HostPresto to see if they can step up their game.
- For the first time for a preorder, we offered an alternative shipping option to US customers at checkout. Instead of the default (FedEx Smartpost), they could upgrade to FedEx Home. It’s not an option needed for most people, but for those who have had bad experiences with Smartpost, I think it’s nice to offer the option. Perhaps we’ll experiment with similar options for other regions too.
I think that’s it! Hopefully these results are helpful for other creators–that’s why I write these articles. If you have any questions or observations, I’d love to hear them in the comments below. You can also preorder Wingspan Oceania on our webstore today.
***
If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content!
24 Comments on “New Strategies and Lessons Learned from the Wingspan Oceania Preorder (so far)”
Leave a Comment
If you ask a question about a specific card or ability, please type the exact text in your comment to help facilitate a speedy and precise answer.
Your comment may take a few minutes to publish. Antagonistic, rude, or degrading comments will be removed. Thank you.
I appreciated the FedEx Home option, and was happy to toss a couple extra bucks in for that. I’ve not had many issues with SmartPost, but Hope is usually a little quicker. Hopefully you’ve had enough interest in that to keep it as an option!
Thanks for a good board game. Is there any way to match funds with these fundraisers please? I’m thinking if I get a Champion shipment could I maybe send an equal amount to relief efforts.
That’s awesome to you to think of, Bill!
I love that you thought of the time zone for us Australians, & I used the link you sent to order at that time. It made me feel very considered & valued as a customer! Thank you. Can’t wait to play.
Thanks appreciate the australia earlier preorder and the champion discount of $10 which makes the postage cheaper. With this it still worked out in line or slightly cheaper then ordering from a retail store and will get to me a bit sooner. I think you might find that people in australia might not be fully aware of the champion benefits from a few posts I’ve seen about it being more expensive with shipping. The upfront fee is recovered if you buy a few items over the year. In stock items always ship quickly from the Australian warehouse
Thanks Sharon! :)
Hey Jamey, I looked into preordering down here in Australia, but the cost for shipping was far too high, so ended up pre-ordering it from a retailer.
I completely understand that, Barry. We actually charged less than the actual postage fees because they are so high down there (and that’s for shipping from within Australia)!
Most retailers down here are able to charge a pretty flat rate of approx US$7. Maybe something to look into in the future?
They’re probably eating the cost, but I’ll look into it!
Yeah, I kind of regret ordering direct now. Paid $27.66 AUD to ship 1x European and 1X Oceania expansion. Standard Aus Post parcel cost for 2.97kg is $15.35. Sendle costs $12.60. So maybe there’s a fulfilment loading?
Other than that, love the open comms and fulfilment email updates (even if I didn’t get my Australian early order alert email.) These blogs offer such a great insight into how a company is run and managed.
John: You’re correct about that postage cost, but it doesn’t include tax, packaging materials, or labor.
That sucks about your hosting company crapping out at exactly the moment you needed them most. Are you considering moving to a different host due to this incident? Or just more promises from HostPresto’s side?
We talked about it, and we’re going to give them one more chance to get it right. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll move to a different hosting company.
Hi, I am one of those who indicated that I would order, but did not. I apologize, but I decided to get it through my local gaming pub/cafe even though it will be slightly more expensive -just to help keep them afloat. I know they are a listed distributor from your website. Just sharing for your info. Thank you, gloria
Thanks Gloria! We have plenty of copies of Oceania in distribution for the December 18 retail release date, and it’s great that you’re supporting your local gaming pub.
Glad its selling well. I wasnt sure how things are/were selling. I hit a point a month or 2 ago where I slowed down buying since I realized I HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO PLAY ANYTHING IN 6 MONTHS! Ugh. This year can fly a kite… I’ll pick up Oceana eventually, but it seems silly to clog up the shelf since I’ve barely been able to get the European expansion to the table more than 4-5 times yet. I held off Pendulum in the meantime as well(granted I was let go at work during that launch). Hope I’m one of the few that had to hold off for you in the meantime. Awesome communication as always.
Nick: I can understand that frustration–I’ve really, really missed in-person gaming.
Hey Jamey –
Thanks for sharing! It’s always insightful to read, especially as you continue to grow your business. Two questions for you on the demand forecasting process that you mentioned.
1. Have you looked into software solutions (i.e. TradeGecko – now QuickBooks Commerce – or Cloudfy) to help manage B2B pre-orders? If so, what are your thoughts?
2. For B2C, have you tried to close the pre-order conversion gap by using any tools/processes? For example, some companies require pre-orders to pay installments as it gets closer to the shipping date or use a lottery to determine who can order. Do you think either of these would be a good fit for Stonemaier’s customers?
Thanks Brett! We do sell directly to a small number of retailers, and we do that through Shopify using a special retailer login. We haven’t looked into other options for that, though it’s good to know if our system stops working.
That’s an interesting question about closing the conversion gap. There are a number of complications and frustrations that can happen during that gap (hence part of the reason why we moved away from Kickstarter). They typically arise after you accept payment for something that you won’t deliver for many months–cancellations, address changes, increase expectations and entitlement, etc. That’s why I prefer a much tighter gap, with the downside being uncertainty on our end as to how many customers will actually order in each region.
Do you think Canada numbers are going down based on negative experiences over a few projects? Or could it be MSRP 30US and Canadian retailers are selling for 28 CDN. That’s quite a difference.
Hoolio: That’s certainly possible, though Tapestry Plans & Ploys delivered to preorder customers in Canada before any other customers in the world. Price could be a factor for actual orders, though not for the launch notification survey.
Yes Plans and Ploys was here Huzzah. so good. just worried about my Champion future if Canadian exchange is really hitting us where it hurts. I love you guys.
I’m a Canadian Champion, and decided to buy from a Canadian Retailer instead because of two factors:
1) Cost – It was much cheaper to buy from a Canadian Online Retailer
2) Availability – With COVID, I’m playing far less games as I have less game nights, and would rather allow others the opportunity to get it earlier.
Nothing against Stonemeier games, and I’ll definitely be buying the next large game directly from the website, and continue being a Champion (even with the unexpected delays in the past).