The Crowd Supply Guide: Your Campaign Has Ended, Now What?
There are three ways a campaign can end: funded, unfunded, or
suspended. Below, we describe what happens and what you need to do for
each scenario.
After a Campaign Funds Successfully
Stuff Crowd Supply Will Do
Here’s what you can expect from Crowd Supply when your campaign
successfully funds.
- Transfer of Funds: Crowd Supply will send you the funds
collected from your backers. Note that if your campaign has reached
its funding goal before the campaign's end-date you have the option
of collecting your funds then or waiting until the official
end-date. While it can be advantageous to access the capital early
(e.g., you can start manufacturing earlier), there are also
downsides such as incurring multiple banking transaction fees or
more complex tax liabilities and accounting. For details on fees and
pricing, see the "How are Funds Received?"
page.
- Transition to Pre-order: If you've reached an agreement with
Crowd Supply on the terms of an initial purchase order for your
products, then your your crowdfunding page will be archived under
the "funded on" link on the campaign page and the project page will
be updated accordingly. For example, the pricing, availability, and
estimated delivery dates of your products might differ between
crowdfunding and pre-order. Note that the URL to your page will NOT
change.
- Fulfillment: As soon as we receive product from you, we will
start shipping orders to your backers first, and then to anyone who
placed a pre-order. There are a couple of details you'll need to
take care of to get shipping started:
- Finalize packaging
- Coordinate product delivery to our warehouse, including payment
for any tariffs, customs, etc.
Stuff You Need To Do
You’ve hit a big milestone, but there’s still lots for you to do:
- Manufacturing plan/progress updates You should have been working
all along to ensure your manufacturing plan is on track and that
product will available when you've said it would be. In any case,
you'll want to issue an update with projected ship dates very soon
so that backers know when to expect their stuff. You should continue
keeping backers up-to-date on the manufacturing progress via project
updates.
- Prepare for shipping and fulfillment Finalize your packaging and
make arrangements to ship your product to the CS warehouse.
- Prepare for transition to sales Ideally, every successfully
funded product continues to be available on Crowd Supply after the
campaign. The way we accomplish this is simple - we buy inventory
from you and continue to sell it for as long as there is
demand. Before the end of the campaign, you and Crowd Supply should
agree to the terms of an initial purchase order.
After Your Campaign Fails to Fund or Is Suspended
So the end date of your campaign came, or you decided to suspend it,
and you did not meet your funding goal. Don’t be downcast, you’ve
actually accomplished a lot. You can take what you learned about your
project and your supporters and use the information to modify your
project, your outreach, and/or your price points and manufacturing
plans. You probably also received some invaluable feedback from
backers and you started to build a community who can help you launch
another project.
Stuff Crowd Supply Will Do
Here’s what you can expect from Crowd Supply:
- Backers will not be charged anything.
- You will not be charged anything.
- While we do not release individual backer data, you will be able to
update your backers to let them know your status.
- The status of your campaign page will be changed to "Time Expired"
or "Suspended". The page will continue to be accessible at the same
URL, but will no longer be listed in our "browse" section. In the
interests of transparency, we will not take down any campaign
pages. Doing so would be re-writing history and would send the
message that we don't stand by our work.
- We'll send you a post-campaign exit survey to help understand what
happened and help us improve.
Stuff You Need To Do
There are just a few loose strings you’ll need to tie up.
- You will need to publish an update to thank backers, let them know
the campaign did not successfully fund, and tell them your plans for
the future, as you see fit. This may also be a good time to solicit
additional feedback by sending out a survey.
- If you sent us any prototypes or other materials for creating
videos, images, etc., be sure to arrange for their return.
Question not answered here? Contact us to see how we can help.
The Crowd Supply Guide: Table of Contents
For Everyone
For Backers
For Creators
Getting Started
Before Your Campaign Launches
During Your Campaign
After Your Campaign Concludes