Fulfillment Checklist for Bag Campaigns: 20 Items Before You Ship

How to use this checklist

Fulfilment failures on bag campaigns are rarely caused by a bad decision. They are caused by a good decision that was never written down, or by a task everybody assumed somebody else owned. This checklist exists to convert assumptions into named items with named owners and a date. It is deliberately short: 20 items, grouped into seven phases, which is enough to control a campaign of 500 to 5,000 backers without becoming a document nobody opens.

Use it in three passes. The first pass happens before launch, when items 1 to 4 are decided and nothing else can be. The second pass happens during the campaign, when items 5 to 8 are prepared in parallel with the pledge period. The third pass happens between close and dispatch, when items 9 to 20 run in sequence with hard dependencies between them.

Every item has an owner, and the owner is a role rather than a person. On most campaigns the same two humans fill all the roles, which is fine, but writing the role down still helps because it clarifies who is waiting on whom. The most common deadlock we see is the creator waiting on a production partner who is waiting on an approval that the creator did not realise was outstanding.

Two items on this list are marked as gates. A gate means dispatch does not proceed until it is ticked, regardless of schedule pressure. There are only two, inspection and address reconciliation, and they are the two whose omission produces damage that money cannot undo later.

Phase 1, campaign design: items 1 to 4

These are the only items that become harder to fix after launch. Item 1 is the configuration cap. Decide the maximum number of colourways and add-on slots before the campaign page is written, because everything downstream, from the minimum order quantity to the packing line, is sized from it. Three colourways and four add-on slots is a sensible ceiling for a first campaign.

Item 2 is the MOQ reconciliation. Each colourway carries a minimum of 500 pcs per style and per colourway, so three colourways is a 1,500-unit commitment. Multiply your realistic backer count by expected colourway split and check each colourway against the threshold. If two of three fall below it, either drop a colourway or plan the surplus for retail.

Item 3 is the delivery promise, stated as a month and not a date. Work backwards from it: sampling takes 6 to 10 working days, or 12 to 15 for complex builds, bulk takes 35 to 50 days, inspection and packing take 10 to 14 days, and dispatch waves take 4 to 10 weeks depending on lane. Add 20 percent contingency before you publish the month.

Item 4 is the shipping and duty statement on the campaign page. Name the countries you ship to, state whether shipping is included, state whether duty and tax are included, and name the countries you exclude. This is the most-read section of any campaign page and the one most often written last.

There is a fifth item that belongs here in spirit even though it is not a separate task: write down the default configuration. If a backer does not choose a colourway, or does not answer the survey, or chooses a combination you did not intend to offer, something has to ship. Naming that default before launch removes an entire class of delay, because the decision no longer needs to be made in week three with 1,000 parcels waiting.

Phase 2, during the campaign: items 5 to 8

The campaign period is the only quiet window you get, and the four items in this phase are all work that can be done while pledges are arriving. Item 5 is the kitting matrix draft. Build the grid of tiers against colourways and add-ons with estimated quantities, even though the real numbers arrive later. Having the structure built turns survey close into a data entry job instead of a design job.

Item 6 is the survey draft, written and tested before the campaign closes. It should collect tier confirmation, colourway, add-ons, shipping address and any compliance information you need. Test it on five people. The most common survey defect is asking for a colourway on a tier that does not offer one, which produces a category of answers nobody can fulfil.

Item 7 is the landed cost model by zone. Build one row per destination group with columns for freight, duty, tax, handling and packaging, and add 6 to 10 percent contingency. Refer to the zone and cost tables for structure. This model is what tells you whether free shipping into a given country is survivable.

Item 8 is the packaging specification. Carton grade, polybag gauge, void fill, insert requirement and label placement should be decided with the production partner during this window, not after bulk lands. A carton specified by grade rather than by price is the cheapest insurance available against transit damage, and it is specified inside the rewards fulfilment plan rather than bought separately at dispatch. and the cost difference is typically 0.40 to 0.90 USD per unit.

Item 8 has a companion that is easy to forget: the carton drop test. Ask for the packed carton to be dropped from a defined height onto each face and corner, then opened and inspected, before the specification is frozen. It takes an hour at this stage and it is the difference between discovering a creasing problem in the sample round and discovering it in 400 backer photographs.

Phase 3, sampling and approval: items 9 to 11

Item 9 is the sample brief. It should state materials, dimensions, hardware, branding placement, colour references and the exact tolerance you consider acceptable. Vague briefs produce samples that look right and perform wrong. Include the packed dimensions you are targeting, because as one campaign found, a 3 cm change in how a panel folds can be worth five figures in freight.

Item 10 is the second sample round. Budget for it. Sampling runs 6 to 10 working days per round, and campaigns that plan for a single round end up approving a compromise. The second round is where structural changes get made, and it is far cheaper to change a fold or a carton at this stage than after 1,000 units exist.

Item 11 is the approved reference sample, signed and retained. This is the physical artefact that settles every later dispute about whether the bulk matches what was promised. Keep two, one at origin and one with you. Photograph it from six angles including the interior and the hardware close-ups, because those photographs become the inspection reference.

Item 11 has a companion task that costs nothing and prevents the most common sample dispute: photograph the approved sample on a neutral background next to a ruler or a known reference object. Colour and scale arguments between a creator and a production run are almost always arguments about photography conditions rather than about the product, and one reference shot removes them.

Sampling

6 to 10 working days per round, 12 to 15 for complex builds

Sample rounds to budget

2

Reference samples to retain

2, one at origin and one with the creator

Photographs required

6 angles, including interior and hardware close-ups

Phase 4, bulk production: items 12 to 14

Item 12 is the deposit payment. Under T/T 30/70 terms, 30 percent is paid on sample approval and 70 percent at or before shipment. Diarise both. A late deposit is the most common cause of a slipped production slot, because capacity of 200,000 pcs per month across 7 lines is allocated to confirmed orders, not to intentions.

Item 13 is the production slot confirmation in writing, with a start date and a completion date. Bulk runs 35 to 50 days after deposit and approved sample, and the spread between 35 and 50 is mostly about where your order sits in the queue and how complex the build is. Get the date rather than the estimate.

Item 14 is the mid-production photograph check, usually around day 18 to 22. Ask for photographs of the line, not of a finished sample. This is the point at which a trimming mismatch, a wrong zip tape or a colour drift can still be corrected. After week four the same problem is a re-make, and a re-make is a campaign-ending event.

Item 14 is also the right moment to confirm the final quantity and the attrition split. If the order includes a 3 to 4 percent buffer, decide now how much ships as loose spares and how much ships as finished units, and to which location. Changing that split after cartons are packed is expensive, because it means opening sealed cartons and re-packing.

Item 13 has a second half that campaigns rarely write down: the completion notification trigger. Agree who tells you when bulk is finished, by what channel, and within how many hours. Without it, goods can sit finished and uninspected for a week while both sides assume the other is acting, and that week comes directly out of the delivery window you published.

Phase 5, inspection and packing: items 15 and 16

Item 15 is the pre-shipment inspection, and it is the first of two gates. Inspection to AQL 2.5 to ISO 2859-1 on the finished, packed goods is what converts a production run into a shippable one. It covers appearance, construction, function, measurement, hardware and packing. Do not release cartons before it passes. The full scope is set out in the pre-shipment check list.

Item 16 is the packing and labelling verification, covering carton count, carton marks, polybag specification, label placement and the match between physical cartons and the packing list. A mismatch of one carton can hold an entry of 200, so reconcile at the door before the truck leaves. Generate the packing list from the same data that produced the labels, never retype it.

These two items are gates for a reason. Everything downstream of them can be fixed with money: freight can be upgraded, duty can be paid, delays can be communicated. A defect found after dispatch cannot be recalled, and a carton mismatch discovered at destination cannot be corrected without returning the goods.

Item 15 also needs a decision rule for a borderline result, agreed in advance. If the inspector finds exactly the accept number of major defects, does the lot ship, or does a specific rework happen first? Agreeing this before inspection prevents the worst conversation in quality control, which is the one that happens while cartons are already at the door and the truck is waiting.

Agree in advance how findings are communicated. A same-day notification when a lot fails, with photographs and the defect breakdown, lets a creator decide while the goods are still accessible. A report that arrives four days later describes a situation that has already moved on, and decisions taken from it are usually worse.

Phase 6, freight and customs: items 17 and 18

Item 17 is the freight booking and lane assignment. Assign each destination group to a lane using a density threshold, consolidate anything above roughly 250 parcels into a single region, and send the tail by postal or courier service. Book early, because the 28 to 45 day sea freight window and the 9 to 16 day air window both assume a booking that exists.

Item 18 is the customs documentation set: commercial invoice with specific descriptions naming material, capacity and style number, packing list matching line by line, correct HS classification under chapter 42, country of origin declared separately from port of export, and declared value set at the pledge amount for the tier. Vague descriptions cause manual inspection, and manual inspection costs days.

Two practical notes on item 18 save repeated trouble. First, keep the invoice, the packing list and the shipping manifest in one folder with a version date in every filename, because customs authorities and hub partners will each ask for a different one and sending the wrong revision is what generates follow-up questions. Second, confirm whether your lane requires a declared value in the destination currency, since some hubs reject entries priced only in the origin currency.

Phase 7, dispatch: items 19 and 20

Item 19 is the address reconciliation, the second gate. Run the backer list against the carrier remote area list and the extended dimension list before labels are printed. A remote surcharge of 18 to 40 USD per parcel discovered after dispatch is unrecoverable, and the fix at this stage is a support email asking the backer to confirm or change the address.

Item 20 is the dispatch wave plan and update cadence. Ship in waves of 150 to 300 parcels rather than all at once, so that a systemic problem affects one wave rather than the whole campaign. Publish an update before each wave and one after, and commit to a cadence, such as every two weeks, for the whole fulfilment period.

Pair item 20 with a holding update written in advance. Draft a short message that says parcels are in transit, gives the tracking source, and states when the next update will arrive. When something slips, which it will at least once, having the draft ready means the communication goes out in minutes rather than after a day of drafting while the comment section fills with speculation.

The wave structure has a second benefit that is easy to miss. It gives you a live sample of the real process. If wave one produces 14 support tickets about a specific issue, waves two to five can be corrected before they ship. Dispatching everything on one day converts every problem into a simultaneous problem.

Finally on item 20, decide who answers the support queue and give them the three documents that resolve 90 percent of enquiries: the dispatch list with tracking numbers, the replacement pool location, and the published policy on damage and defects. A support agent with those three things answers most tickets in one reply, and a support agent without them escalates everything to the creator.

The five items most often skipped

Reading back across the campaigns we have supported, five items are skipped far more often than the rest, and the skipping is what produces the familiar fulfilment stories. They are not the hardest items. They are the ones that feel optional because nothing breaks immediately when they are missed.

1. Item 2, MOQ reconciliation, because the colourway decision feels like marketing until the order quantity arrives.
2. Item 7, landed cost model, because freight quotes are easy to get and landed cost requires an afternoon of work.
3. Item 10, second sample round, because the first sample usually looks acceptable and planning a second feels pessimistic.
4. Item 14, mid-production photograph check, because weeks three and four of production feel like dead time.
5. Item 19, address reconciliation, because it happens after the exciting part and before the visible part.

Each of those five has the same profile: skipping it saves a day or two and costs between one and six weeks later. The asymmetry is extreme, and it is why a written checklist with dates outperforms good intentions by such a wide margin.

One structural point about the five. Four of them happen before production starts, which means the failure they cause is not visible until months later. That distance between cause and symptom is exactly why a checklist with dates beats experience: experience tells you what hurt last time, while a dated list tells you what will hurt next Tuesday if nobody does it.

Add a sixth candidate for this list: the post-campaign review. It is not on the twenty because it costs nothing during fulfilment, but skipping it means the second campaign repeats the first one's gaps. One hour of notes after the final parcel, listing which items were unticked and what each cost, is the highest return activity in the entire programme.

A one page version to print and pin

The full checklist with all twenty items fits on one page when printed, and it should be pinned somewhere visible rather than stored in a folder. The condensed version below is what we recommend printing, with the two gates marked so nobody has to remember which items are non-negotiable.

1. Cap colourways and add-on slots, Design
2. Reconcile colourway split against 500 pcs MOQ, Design
3. Publish delivery as a month with 20 percent contingency, Design
4. Publish shipping, duty and country exclusions, Design
5. Draft the kitting matrix, Campaign
6. Draft and test the backer survey, Campaign
7. Build the landed cost model by zone, Campaign
8. Specify packaging by grade, not by price, Campaign
9. Write a sample brief with tolerances, Sampling
10. Budget and run a second sample round, Sampling
11. Retain and photograph the approved reference sample, Sampling
12. Pay the 30 percent deposit on approval, Bulk
13. Confirm the production slot with dates, Bulk
14. Request mid-production line photographs, Bulk
15. AQL 2.5 to ISO 2859-1 inspection (gate), Inspection
16. Carton and packing list reconciliation (gate), Inspection
17. Assign lanes by density and book freight, Freight
18. Complete the customs documentation set, Freight
19. Reconcile addresses against surcharge lists (gate), Dispatch
20. Ship in waves with a published update cadence, Dispatch

Print two copies and give the second one to whoever is doing the packing. The items that matter most on the bench are 15, 16, 19 and 20, and a packer who has seen the list asks better questions than one who has not. This is particularly true on item 16, where the person sealing cartons is the only person who can catch a count discrepancy before it becomes a customs hold.

What to do when you cannot tick an item

The checklist is a control tool, not a morality test. Some items will not be ticked, and the useful response is to make the omission explicit rather than to pretend it away. Write the item number, the reason, and the compensating action, then tell whoever is affected. An unticked item with a noted mitigation is controlled risk; an unticked item nobody mentioned is an accident waiting for a date.

Three compensations cover most gaps. If you cannot complete the landed cost model, cap free shipping to your two largest zones and charge everywhere else. If you cannot run a second sample round, add a mid-production photograph check and accept a longer approval window. If you cannot inspect on site, require a photographed inspection report against the approved reference sample before release.

Keep the record of unticked items somewhere you will see it again. The purpose is not accountability for its own sake but the post-campaign review, which is the point at which the list improves. Campaigns that write down what they skipped and why consistently run a tighter second campaign, because the second time the gap is anticipated rather than discovered.

The one compensation that does not work is compressing the schedule. Every item on this list has a duration that comes from a physical process: fabric has to be dyed, panels have to be sewn, cartons have to cross an ocean. Removing the time does not remove the work, it just moves the work into the visible part of the campaign where backers can see it.

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