Freight, Wonderful Freight

Stress? Anxiety? Abject terror? Fear of the unknown can induce all sorts of reactions. For me, freight has been one of those unknowns for a while, but as with many things, the antidote is knowledge.

I recently had a call with a lovely guy at Spiral Galaxy Games (I should say right now that I have no affiliation Spiral Galaxy Games, nor is this a paid article in any way), who was extremely kind and helpful. I can only hope that everyone I come across in the board game industry is as awesome. Over the course of an hour’s conversation, freight, shipping, fulfilment, distribution, all went from occupying an anxious unknown to a list of very achievable goals. Yes there’s a lot to take on, and a lot to keep track and on top of, but this reasonably complicated topic can be reduced to a set of digestible goals.

I won’t go into each and every aspect here, it’s kinda dry and specific (and I would also highly recommend talking with someone who lives and breathes this stuff), however I did want to distill some of that information. Parts of what follows will be generalised and perhaps helpful for wherever you are in the world, however some parts will be specific to where I live (the UK). The whole process of getting a game from the factory into the buyer’s hands is a long, interconnected journey with many moving parts. I’ll attempt to hit as many points of that journey as I can.

This blog entry is not meant as a replacement for doing your own research and having your own conversations, I am writing this more as a starting or reference point for helping to demystify what might otherwise be a stressful process. Use the drop down list below to find more information on each part of the journey.

• Factory To Port

  Along with the vast majority of board game publishers, I will be asking a Chinese factory to make my games. I would love to be able to use a factory closer to home, but the manufacturing cost makes it completely unviable for something like a kickstarter campaign. There does exist a service to organise the delivery of goods directly from the factory to your warehouse location, and there may be some benefit to doing so, but I was advised that more usual to liaise with the factory to get your goods from the factory to the port.

  In the main shipping part of the journey, your games will be transported on pallets. Although there are variations on size, you would generally expect a pallet (with your games on) to be in the region of a 1m square base, with a total volume of around 2 cubic metres (or about 2 metres tall). How many games you can fit into this space of course depends on how large your game box is, which can be a crucial factor to monitor throughout the design as well as manufacturing process. If a small change in some component size means you can make the game box a tiny bit smaller, therefore fitting an extra hundred boxes onto a pallet, then you have made a potentially valuable efficiency gain.

• Port To Port

  There are some great online services that function like comparison sites, where you can choose your shipping from a selection of approximate quotes. This in itself feels like a massive help, and from what I can gather a very welcome simplification from what the process was not even a decade ago.

  If you use a fulfilment and distribution company (like Spiral Galaxy Games), then it’s highly likely that they will be able to secure a lower shipping fee than what you might be able to find online. Not guaranteed by any means, but, as will be the case with many parts of the physical process of getting your game to your customer, there will be a tradeoff between how much time and energy you personally spend to find a lower cost versus entrusting that service to someone else. In almost all cases (at least for a newbie designer like me) paying someone else to do the job faster and better than you can is better than taking that job on yourself.

  If you want to get a rough estimate of shipping costs without even lifting the phone, use something like freightos.com to get a quick quote.

• Importing Into The UK

  This is a big one. For importing into the UK, your business needs to be registered with the Customs Declaration Service (almost certainly there will be analogous services for other countries). In order to do so, your business must first be VAT registered, and will also need an EORI (Economic Operators' Registration and Identification) number.

  There is a clear process for acquiring these thing, and so long as you have a business registered in the UK then it should only be time that’s a limiting factor. However, there is a lot of information connected to these process.

  Import TAX. In the UK you are required to pay 20% of the total cost of shipping and manufacturing combined as Import TAX.

  C79 VAT Certificate. When goods are brought into the country under your EORI number, you will receive this for your records, which will then be used as part of your quarterly VAT statement.

  Safety Marking. Required if anyone under 14 years old will be playing your game.

  There are definitely many other considerations, but these seem to be the logistical requirements necessary to legally, and literally, get your games into the country.

• Flooring

  Once you’ve got your games into the country you want to distribute those games from, you need a warehouse in that country to store the games. If you’re using a fulfilment company then they will likely either have their own warehouse or have a relationship with a flooring company.

  If you aren’t using a fulfilment company, or decide to find your own warehouse to store your games, then you will have a few more responsibilities to cover. I am not intending to do this, and am certainly not the best source of knowledge for this.

• Exporting To Other Regions

  Another big one with lots of complications depending on which region you are exporting goods to or from. Depending on your arrangement with your fulfilment service (if you have one) this might differ quite drastically from project to project. There are many things to consider.

  Import TAX for each country. Each country has a different rate of Import TAX applied to specific types of goods.

  Shipping affects how VAT is paid. There are three different methods for shipping into the EU (probably similar but different across the rest of the world), which are Delivered Duties Unpaid, Delivered Duties Paid, or via the Import One Stop Shop.

• Flooring In Other Regions

  Depending on the amount of units shipping to a particular region, it may make more sense to have multiple warehouses across the world rather than one central hub. If you are only sending one or two packages to a particular country or region, then it’s always better to send from a central hub and have the customer of that region assume the cost of shipping. However, there will come a point where the number of units going to one region will make it so that securing another hub will make more sense. This point will vary massively from project to project, as it would involve possibly another port to port journey (probably air cargo if not), as well as paying for separate flooring and administration.

  If you are working with a fulfilment company, then it is likely that they will have either relationships or affiliations with different companies around the world. I gather it’s quite a small world in this regard.

There is a lot, lot more that goes into affecting each part of the decision making process for freight, shipping, fulfilment and distribution. Again, the above list is not exhaustive, but is a capture of my current understanding. If you are new to this, as I am, then I hope you found some things useful, and can use this as a starting point. If you have already been through this process then I would love to hear your thoughts, and to know how your understanding has developed over time.

As always, thanks for reading!

Benjie x