Using Freight Marketplaces for Your Board Game Kickstarter

“Wait, you’re telling me that some creators actually want to book their own freight?”

This was my response when Brandon at Fulfillrite approached me about a guest post. I was baffled both because I’ve always used a freight broker (the excellent OTX) to get our games from Panda to the various fulfillment centers and direct-ship distributors worldwide.

But Brandon assured me that freight marketplaces are an increasingly viable option, particularly for smaller creators. Here’s Brandon to explain the details:

***BRANDON***

In many ways, the board game world of 2021 resembles the one of 2016. Kickstarters are booming, with both small and large companies seeing success. Trends have come and gone, sure, but the basic series of steps needed to make a great Kickstarter has stayed more or less the same.

Yet there has been one key innovation in how to fulfill a Kickstarter that I think is worth mentioning. That innovation is the rise of freight marketplaces.

Put simply, it’s a lot easier to book freight shipments than it used to be. A few years ago, you needed a broker or a friendly manufacturer to get your goods across the world with a minimum of hassle. Now you don’t.

What is a freight marketplace?

As recently as five years ago, if you wanted to ship goods across the world for a Kickstarter campaign, you had two decent options. Either you:

1. Found a freight broker such as OTX Logistics and asked them to take care of the process for you, or,
2. You had your manufacturer (Panda, LongPack, etc.) ship goods to you delivery duties paid (DDP).

Both freight shipping options that I listed above still work and work well to boot. But an enticing third option has been quietly changing the freight industry for the better, to relatively little fanfare. That’s where freight marketplaces come in.

One of the first industries to seriously revolutionize after the Internet became mainstream in the late 1990s was travel. Particularly, companies like Expedia allowed people to book their own plane tickets and hotels, among other things. You no longer needed a travel agent.

Digital freight marketplaces do the same thing for companies that are shipping a lot of goods. You are able to book your own freight shipping by choosing from available freight carriers. You no longer need a freight broker.

Freight marketplaces vs freight brokers

Much like how Expedia didn’t eliminate travel agents from the job market, freight marketplaces won’t eliminate freight brokers from the job market either. Freight marketplaces are merely an attractive alternative to hiring a broker.

If you want somebody to take care of freight entirely on your behalf, then it still makes sense to hire a freight broker. They have hard-won know-how that’s irreplaceable.

But if you want to save a bit of cash or exercise a wider control over your business operations, then freight marketplaces are the way to go. One that I’ve used and that I personally like is Freightos.

Walking you through the process of booking freight

The basic steps of booking freight through a marketplace like Freightos are pretty simple. I can summarize it in five points:

1. Enter the weight and dimensions of your items to be shipped.
2. Enter pickup and delivery locations.
3. Purchase add-on services for customs clearance and shipping insurance.
4. Select a freight quote.
5. Enter your business and contact information.

It’s a surprisingly straightforward process, all considered.

At this point, I think “show” beats “tell.” If you’re curious as to how freight marketplaces actually work, then you’re in luck. I’m going to walk through the process of setting up freight with my preferred freight marketplace, Freightos.

It’s a longer read, so you can find that article here on the Fulfillrite blog.

Want to make crowdfunding less stressful? Letting a fulfillment company ship rewards for you is a great way to do that. If you want to learn more about how that works, request a quote from Fulfillrite today.

Brandon Rollins is a Marketing Consultant at Fulfillrite. His main areas of expertise are online marketing and supply chain management. He also runs Pangea Marketing Agency and writes for Marketing is the Product.

***JAMEY***

Thank you, Brandon, for taking the time to share this information! While I will continue to use OTX for freight brokerage, it’s good to show other creators that they have other options for booking freight.

If you have any questions about freight marketplaces, feel free to ask them in the comments below. I’m also curious if you’ve tried using a freight marketplace–you can share your experiences here.

If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content!

• Tweet