Kickstarter Projects Discussion: Cost, Rewards,etc

[martinpulido]

By now there have been a number of successful and unsuccessful kickstarter projects for playing cards. I think it would be helpful as we think ahead about future projects if we could consider what works and what does not work for such projects. This would apply both to the designer (did he project his costs well? did he give himself enough fulfillment time?) and to the kickstarters. I admit it is more particularly helpful to me as I am thinking of starting one, but clearly others would benefit from this thread. 5 things that I have wanted to examine are: (1) the costs of card production that the designer needs to keep in mind, (2) setting a price for a deck on KS, (3) reasonable fulfillment times, (4) marketing a KS project, and (5) good rewards to offer beyond decks and uncut sheets.

(1) Costs. As I have been thinking of putting a kickstarter project together, I have wanted to make sure in calculating a goal that I have all of the costs in mind. For a deck of cards, I imagine this to be the basic formula for calculation with fixed/optional costs noted:

Price of Printing a Basic Deck (fixed) + Bicycle Branding of Deck and Other Stock/Ink/Gilding Adds(optional) + Amazon Payment Surcharge (fixed) + Shipping (fixed) + Handling (optional) + Design Labor (optional)

Have I missed anything else? No one wants to be wrong on these things...

I know that there are other costs that the designer needs to keep in mind with other rewards he offers besides uncut sheets. The cost forumula will of course be adjusted somewhat for that.

(2) Price of a Deck. What is a good price for 1 deck of cards (with free US domestic shipping)? I have looked online and the costs fluctuate substantially, so I wanted to know what you guys thought. Obviously, we would love a deck to cost as low as possible when we are buyers, but I wanted to get a price range from you: the low end being what price you would be thrilled about and the high end being what you still thought was reasonable. I think setting this initial cost for 1 deck is crucial, so help here would be appreciated not just for my project, but other projects as well.

To help the discussion, let us assume that the cost is for a 2500 run of bicycle stock cards with magic finish. Obviously, expectations would change for metallic inks, bee card stock (which actually requires a 5000 run from the USPC), gilding, etc., or if the cards were produced at a lower quality than the standard I just set.

(3) Fulfillment Times. How long should a kickstarter expect to wait to receive a deck of cards + whatever rewards he has ordered? I have seen kickstarter projects range from 2.5 - 5 months in this regard, and I wonder if they fulfilled them on time and how hard it was to do so.

The designer I imagine tries to calculate this time based on amazon processing the charges, last minute art changes with the printer, the 4-6 weeks that the USPC claims it will take to fulfill the order, any time on the production of other reward items, and the time it will take him to ship those orders himself (which can be substantial when he has a FT day job). Then he has to leave some buffer room in case something slips. Is there something else I am missing?

Again, to help the discussion, let us assume that the cost is for a 2500 run of bicycle stock cards with magic finish being printed from the USPC.

(4) Marketing. Most of the successful playing card projects have superior designs than those that fail, but this is not always the case initially. Both the Deck of the Living Dead and Ultraviolet failed initially, but then succeeded the second time. The Deck of the Living Dead significantly exceeded its goal the second time. What was the difference? The product was the same (or so I think), so there must have been a difference somewhere else, and here I am thinking it was likely in the marketing. I am curious to know successful methods of marketing a KS project beyond the page and video. How do you drive traffic to your site and convince people to buy? What has proven successful in the past? Clearly, the rewards (see below) is a significant part of the buying side, but it doesn't drive the initial traffic. So we need to think of both how to get buzz and how to get transactions.

(5) Rewards. Besides decks of cards and uncut sheets, what are other rewards that you would find satisfying to receive? Here are some possibilities I thought of for my philosophy deck:

(a) Stickers. As a "reward," I don't think a sticker would ever be an individual item, but they would be conjoined with others, like a deck of cards. Stickers would pretty much be free (1 going in every order), or at least in every order of $10 or more. I am imagining this could add a, "Oh, isn't that thoughtful and nice" reaction, but maybe I am wrong. Is this thought worth it? Here is a 2.5" x 2.5" round sticker I have thought of including (in different color options, which affect the cost of printing them):

These stickers pun on Plato's/Socrates' idea in the Republic that the state should be ruled by philosopher kings. By putting it in the burger king format, I am showing what most philosophers have got to do with their training instead.

(b) Postcards. Looking at the successful playing card kickstarter projects, it is notable that pretty much all rewards under $4 garner hardly any pledges. The rewards have been thank yous and digital proofs, and people don't seem to care for that. The question is whether people aren't really willing to pledge for less than a deck of cards, or if the rewards being offered just aren't good enough. I wonder if, say, 1-3 postcards (maybe with a sticker) was rewarded for a pledge of $2-3, would these pledges be more popular? The postcard could be art from the tuckbox or the card backs or even something else. To help visualize:

Do you think anyone would pledge a lower amount for such rewards?

(c) Posters. These have worked sometimes, and other times they have not on Kickstarter. Sometimes it seems pretty clear it is do the boring design, but other times it is not so clear. Is it the cost of the poster or the quality of the print, or something else? What do you think--are posters good ideas and what makes them work?

(d) T shirts. These are pretty rare in the playing card kickstarter projects. In fact, as far I know, only Blue Blood and Deck of the Living Dead have done so (feel free to correct me) with shirts that were both very simple. The shirt pledges did seem to go okay, being offered for $85+/$56+ pledges, with 19 pledges getting Blue Blood shirts and 35 getting Deck of the Living Dead shirts. So they were more premium items, but this is justified due to the high cost of making shirts with low quantities. Do you think shirts are a nice addition? I had designed some philosophy themed shirts in the past that I thought might be cool for this project. Most have a dadaist style that captures important concepts of their philosophy.

(e) Card Clips. I have seen at least two projects (The Grid being one) where card clips are offered and they "sold"/were pledged for quite successfully. Were these a novelty item that people might now be burnt out on (they are no longer new, or everyone now has one, so what-ev), or is it something that continues to appeal to kickstarters today?

(f) Miscellaneous. Is there anything else that has worked well or might?

Thanks for enduring this long post, but I hope it will help us better understand the nuances playing card Kickstarter projects. I look forward to your contributions!

 

[Steerpike]

(4) Marketing. Most of the successful playing card projects have superior designs than those that fail, but this is not always the case initially. Both the Deck of the Living Dead and Ultraviolet failed initially, but then succeeded the second time. The Deck of the Living Dead significantly exceeded its goal the second time. What was the difference? The product was the same (or so I think), so there must have been a difference somewhere else, and here I am thinking it was likely in the marketing. I am curious to know successful methods of marketing a KS project beyond the page and video. How do you drive traffic to your site and convince people to buy? What has proven successful in the past? Clearly, the rewards (see below) is a significant part of the buying side, but it doesn't drive the initial traffic. So we need to think of both how to get buzz and how to get transactions.

There's a rather significant factor you're overlooking. Who is the target market and does this create value for them? Crowdfunding succeeds or fails based on how much of an audience you're able to attract and convince to part with their money. It's not as easy as you might think.

 

[Ferox]

there was a card project a while back (that i sadly missed), Brimstone.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1017676492/brimstone-metallic-gold-accented-card-deck?ref=live

This was the nicest deck I have ever seen.

 

[martinpulido]

@Steerpike: Yep, the size of your audience and willingness to part with money is clearly important. I don't know even if anyone thinks it'll be that easy, though. Anyone who is frugal with their money knows how it is hard to coax it out of them. Lol. Anyway audience is one I doubt with my own project. I am glad to see you adding more thought in terms of the marketing aspect; I figured my post was long enough.

@Ferox: Brimstone was very awesome.

 

[Ferox]

Well, the trick is to make a cool deck that the end cost wont average 8-9$
The only reason I do not use shadowmasters, ghost, etc is the cost. I get standard biked for less than 2$. I would gladly spend 4$ on a really nice deck....but...therein lies your conundrum I assume.....

 

[martinpulido]

Alright! I am glad to see there has been some great stimulating discussion on this topic here and in other playing card forums. Time to add a monster-sized response! Let me give some feedback/thoughts on what I have heard in a topical manner across the forums:

(1) Cost: It looks like I missed a few other charges here that have been kindly pointed out to me. These are Kickstarter's cut of profits, sales/reselling taxes, and then a related cost of promotion (say for websites or any ads). With taxes, there might also be income taxes to think about too later down the line. This leads to another question of cost for the emerging Kickstarter--must he set his own business up to kickstart a project and how does that factor into cost as well? Some of that will be state specific. Anyone have anything to explain on the tax/business license end?

Shipping, both domestic and international, looks like it should be its own topic! Since a deck of cards is around 3.3 ounces and the packaging is going to add some weight, the shipment weight is going to be around 3.8-4.8 ounces. Based on the United States Postal Services prices, shipping 1 deck of cards could cost:

(a) If the package can be considered a large envelope (3 oz /4 oz): $1.50/$1.70. On this, I am not sure of the exact thickness of a deck of cards, but it has to be right on the border for the envelope qualification, which sets it a 3/4". I think a deck is around 5/8"-3/4", so it might even depend on the human factor--who is during your order at the post office. Some have suggested that the deck's rigidity will make it qualify as a parcel anyway, so:

(b) If the package is considered a parcel (3 oz/4 oz): $1.95/$2.12

However, the domestic shipping does have other costs, such as the envelope/packaging itself, and any reasonable handling fees. For the former, I looked on Amazon and saw bubble padded envelopes available for around $15 for 100 (so add .15). For the latter, what should be considered a fair handling fee? 2 minutes of labor at $10/hour (around .33)? Or do we consider the kickstarter to be waving the mundane labor of packaging and shipping the products? Regardless, it seems clear that a $2 charge built into a deck doesn't even cover domestic shipping, let alone help with international costs. It seems more like $2.50 just to cover (on parcel price) domestic shipping + handling, and yet some people have said that $2 is too steep already. Something to think about.

I think that mostly covers the domestic shipping. But with international, things change. When it comes to smaller orders, I think it is worth it to stick with first class mail international, regardless of it not having delivery confirmation or tracking as Don pointed out. As a quick aside I have heard, but need to do more research, that there are ways to insure the product even with FCI. I doubt it would be worth the price hike, though. Anyway, speaking from experience, I have had numerous decks from my BANG! expansions shipped on first class international without any problems. Since the difference in the cost of shipping is substantial, if a deck is lost in transit, it is no big deal to ship another replacement deck given the money saved by using first class international. Let me show the price break down for First-Class:

(a) If the package can be considered a large envelope (3 oz/4 oz) and is shipping to Canada, Mexico, China/Japan [price group 3], or Bangladesh [price group 6]: $1.80/$1.95, $2.56/$3.09, $3.31/$4.09, $3.23/$3.97.

(b) If the package is considered a parcel (3 oz/4 oz) and is shipping to Canada, Mexico, China/Japan, or Bangladesh: $3.30/$3.45, $4.05/$4.59, $4.56/$5.34, $4.48/$5.22.

Now, look at the price hike for Priority Mail International:

If the package is a large envelope OR a small parcel (up to 4 pounds) and is shipping to Canada/Mexico or other international countries: $12.95/$16.95.

The increase is so substantial (300-400%) that I would only consider it only for the +$100 pledges, or maybe as an add for international pledges if they were willing to pay for it. With international, there is also an increase in handling time with customs paperwork. I have no idea how long one of those sheets takes to fill out, but it could add a .50 cent surcharge given the $10/hour figure used before.

Now, these prices have been thought out just for 1 deck of cards being shipped. Costs will change depending on the items pledged. On the whole, I imagine that shipping/handling costs will decrease in scale as the items pledged increase. For instance, 2 decks domestic shipping could cost:

If the package is considered a parcel (7/8): $2.63/$2.80. Note that that would only a 35%/32% increase in the cost of shipping; not double. Packaging and handling would increase in cost, but this would also not double. Packaging only gets problematic when an additional package is needed, because then the shipping cost does double. This could be the case with an additional package being needed for a rolled poster. So if one built in cost for price of domestic shipping per deck, he would make a higher profit margin on larger orders. This would be the same with international if shipping was built in for those orders, but there would be more awkward price hikes, such as when a parcel suddenly weighed more than 4 pounds.

Anyway, since the pricing can be pretty complicated when taken as a whole, what is the best way to explain your costs to a kickstarter in the most intelligible way? I don't know if saying "just be honest" cuts it. Clearly, one should be honest, but the explanation needs to be understandable to the kickstarter in a quick and digestible manner. How much should be disclosed?

I don't think I have seen any playing card project that really break down the costs, and you wonder how honest the designers are about the costs. And I don't mean this in terms of stiffing the pledgers, but in terms of stiffing themselves. For a successful project, I wonder how much profit a designer typically can make. Given the hundreds of hours you spend designing the project, advertising the project, getting and responding to feedback, and fulfilling the orders, do you even come close to minimum wage? In most cases I doubt it, so I wonder where the rumors of greedy designers come from.

(2) Price of a Deck: There has been a larger variety of responses in this area than I was expecting. This might be because I didn't specify as to what the cost of a deck should be with free domestic shipping being built into the price. International would be added separately, but with the recognized difference in the built in price. I wouldn't want a total built in price for both domestic and international.

Some have suggested that it might be worth turning a loss on 1-2 deck orders, so that you can benefit from their WOM (word of mouth) advertising. This is a possibility to consider, but I wonder if there is proof that it really pays off.

(3) Fulfillment Times: Most haven't discussed this, but it looks to be pretty fair what I suggested. Also of note is the importance of communication in any shipping time frames to your kickstarters.

(4) Marketing: One important item in discussion in this area has been the importance of securing business from retailers for larger orders. This has led me to some questions on how to do this with a product that does not yet exist. How do you merchandise to shops and businesses with a kickstarter project, especially when it is your first one?

It seems that a retailer would want a sample of the real deal, but you don't have that yet. You can mitigate this somewhat with a prototype deck. Yet any quality prototype deck is going to cost a lot, even if you use Brahma playing card's sample deck ($50). You might be able to show that deck around town, but what about to out of state vendors? You can't ship the deck to them--no guarantee they will send it back, and $50 for a lost deck is a steep cost. Perhaps you could mitigate this by only shipping out a few cards instead. Also, you could use a printer on demand to make decks for $6 a pop, but here you have to worry about the quality of the product in selling a far higher quality product.

To buttress the lack of a finished product, you can always have a well designed website with a good video and images showcasing the final design. Some PR and buzz from your product on popular blogs might also help. But is all of this enough? I don't know.

Out of state contacting seems difficult in general. Do you just call a shop up or send them an e-mail with an attachment and hope they respond? You can't really afford to drive or fly across the country in hopes of getting a vendor for your product.

 

[martinpulido]

(5) Rewards: There seems to be some consensus around the rewards, and I want to synthesize the remarks and ask some questions. In general, I think the real struggle of other rewards is finding a reward that is appealing to the kickstarter, price efficient, and easy to fulfill with the original project.

(a) Stickers and Postcards. There is a general consensus that such items are nice, but should be offered either as a free addition to other items as a perk OR as an add. I think I am okay with that idea; the former sort of encourages people to jump to another price point to get the free items that come with it. I think there is the question of whether these other items might hurt your ability to cover the costs for your own project, and if they are worth the time for their development and quality assurance. However, the extra something that they add might help in building a good relationship with your customers for future projects.

(b) Posters. People have been pretty split on this, some thinking it is worth the time and relatively easy to do, and others think it is not. It looks like it depends on the attractiveness of the design of the deck and the poster as an art piece in itself. No surprise here, really.

(c) T-shirts. There has been some debate on whether a t-shirt should be clearly tied to the card project itself (such as the t-shirts for Deck of the Living Dead or Tendril) or more loosely connected to it (such as Blue Blood's Memento Mori shirts and the ones I designed in the past). I think this may depend on how oriented your project is to playing card fanatics and also what kinds of t-shirts people like to wear. In general, I am not a fan of walking advertisement t-shirts, whether for a product or company, although I design them all the time for work (lol). But others may really like them. The real problem with t-shirts is their large cost of production in minimum quantities; are they really going to cover for themselves. In my project, it might be good to have them exclusively as adds if I was going to do them. Also, I would have to narrow down the shirt options. I could always use my designs on posters instead.

(d) Card clips. The discussion has suggested that these have been recent popular items; long term success of these items may decline as they become more widely available beyond the kickstarter projects. Most seem to think that for my project one should not be done or I should just add plain ones.

(e) Miscellaneous. A few additional items have been suggested that could be of value: wristbands, dice, guitar picks, dealer's coins, card boxes/display cases, and additional gaff cards. I don't know how you could do additional gaff cards well. Even if you did extra gaffs through Brahma's sample decks, couldn't there be some serious color differences on the backs with the different printing and material? I imagine gaffs only work well when they look like they fit into the deck. But I might just be showing my ignorance again. Lol.

As for the book/card box idea, I like it for larger orders or as an add. I will have to try making one to see how it works and how much labor is involved. Getting my hands on old philosophy books and getting them shipped to and shipped from me might get a little pricey, but I will try to consider that in the price.