Where do I sell my stuff after kickstarter?

[wfsuper]

I started a project last week on kickstarter and it's successfully funded. Right now it seems that I'm getting more orders than I expected. I may end up with a not very good number of orders - too small to use automated automated soldering systems; too big/expensive to solder by hand. How many do you think is a good number for the first batch? Where do I sell my stuff after kickstarter if I order more? Any suggested distributors to contact? I don't have experience with factories before. Any suggestions are welcome! I want feedback from as many people as possible. Thanks!!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pnmini/pnmini-positive-negative-power-supply-module-for-m?ref=home_location

The project itself is not complicated. But it's a good learning experience for me.

[mariush]

I've seen several people use tindie.com : https://www.tindie.com/

I don't know if it's the best, the fees etc.

Anyway..  a domain name is 10-12$, a shared hosting account is a few dollars a month, people can pay you using paypal , or you could just point people to your ebay account (costs something like 50 cents to put a product with buy it now for a month and some 5-10% fees on each sale)

I wouldn't bother with distributors or stores ( like adafruit or sparkfun or something like that) for such a cheap product.. they'll most likely want at least 25-40% of the value added as their profit, and a minimum quantity to ship to them etc etc etc...

[EEVblog]

Sparkfun, Adafruit, Seedstudio and others will handle it all for you and give you a (small) cut of the profits.
If you want the maximum profits you have to assemble and sell yourself.

[gxti]

Tindie is a fine place to sell if you want to handle fulfillment yourself while someone else takes care of accepting orders. Gives an air of legitimacy that you don't get running your own site, although they are not mutually exclusive either.

[Dago]

Seeedstudio and itead both do manufacturing outsourcing for small batches. I have no experience with either though. http://www.seeedstudio.com/propagate/

I did some asking around and even the local manufacturing shops were surprisingly competetive in terms of pricing. For reference a couple of shops I asked around for a "similar" small project charged like 100-200€ starting cost and then a few euros per each manufactured board and were willing to supply all (common) passives for cheap/free. I think your project is priced too low for "western" manufacturing at these quantities though.

[tesla500]

Your quantity is not too small for automated assembly by any means. I've used OurPCB in China for PCB and assembly and it's quite reasonable, the setup fee is only a few hundred dollars. Local manufacturers usually cost much more so it may appear at first glance to be cost prohibitive.

[Dago]

Your quantity is not too small for automated assembly by any means. I've used OurPCB in China for PCB and assembly and it's quite reasonable, the setup fee is only a few hundred dollars. Local manufacturers usually cost much more so it may appear at first glance to be cost prohibitive.

It might be too cheap for automated assembly though You are supposed to figure out manufacturing before setting the price and promising products for the customers...

[jancumps]

Can you set limits to the existing pledges after you launched the kickstarter?
Maybe that can help to close the running tap, in the case that automatic production (and international shipping) will cost more than your selling price.

[wfsuper]

thanks for all the suggestions

[MacAttak]

If you continue to get more backers than you expected or are comfortable with, then there is always the option to cap all active pledge levels to a reasonable amount that you can safely deliver.

Far too many crowdfunded campaigns get greedy and end up on the hook to deliver far more than they were prepared to ship (or were capable of).

There is nothing wrong with running a follow-up campaign later to do a second batch. If you keep your first campaign safe and deliver on your promises then the second one will likely also go well. But if you try to do too much all at once and get overwhelmed then it will only burn you out and piss off all of your backers.

[zapta]

Ian had a video on the topic



BTW, very nice product and campaign. Did you make the video yourself? It's well done for a $1K goal.

[kingofkya]

For small assembly you might try elecrow.com if you cant find someone local. If you pay 20$ for the solder stensal they will reflow solder the board. There rates are around 2-3 cents a pad. They will do it for as little as 20 boards so might be worth a shot.

I wish i had a better picture but the smd parts were done by them all seamed to be solid joints. http://christmas.kneale.us/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php/wm2999productionpcb.jpg?cache=&w=900&h=751&tok=0efdc9

Sent them about 200 pannels with atmega and a few passives they had it done the day they got the parts. As a side not you want to avoid shipping parts to china %10 import tax. I made the mistake of useing a cheap but some what rare voltage regulator.

[mazurov]

It seems that you set your prices too low therefore the only viable option would be to build everything yourself until you hit reel quantities on expensive parts (2500 pieces, may as well never happen). Buy yourself a pick and place like this one -> http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=4903 , build a reflow oven and go.

[Rasz]

reach out to communities your product is targeting
ebay