Drop Shipping Via Kickstarter
Buying stuff for cheap and then reselling it for a profit isn’t a crime. At least, not that I’m aware of. If it were, then all those PS5 scalpers would be in jail and I’d be playing Crash Bandicoot 4 by now. But a recent controversy that’s been popping up more and more on Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the “crowdfunding resellers.”
These are campaigns that have been accused of buying their products, usually for cheap in China, and then pitching it as a new idea on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
But the problem here is obvious. Crowdfunding is supposed to be for creative-types. Isn’t the idea to connect creators with backers? Not to sell existing products and pretend it’s yours?
Selling lies for profit?
Before I get into the 3 examples, I want to note that the purpose of this post is just to highlight what appears to be a troubling trend on both major crowdfunding platforms.
In some cases, the accused campaigns have denied drop shipping to their backers. Other campaigns haven’t said anything about it one way or the other. And both crowdfunding platforms have allowed these campaigns to continue without interruption, despite backer complaints. So… backer beware?
Three Phase One ebike
The first time I heard of someone accused of being a crowdfunding reseller was on r/shittykickstarters.
(Probably my favorite subreddit name, by the way.)
The campaign in question was the “Three Phase One” e-bike. Redditors accused the campaign creator of buying his ebike design on the Chinese wholesale website alibaba.com. And that’s where the problems started.
Photo credit: r/shittykickstarters
From the image above you can see why there was suspicion about the project’s legitimacy. This comparison from Reddit shows what appears to be the same photo of the Phase Three One ebike assembly line as the one on Alibaba. The only difference seems to be that the image on the Indiegogo update doesn’t have the bike brand name on the bike frame. Which led some to believe that it was photoshopped off of the Alibaba image.
FYI, the bike on Alibaba is sold as the “Petrigo 700” for about $450 – with a free option for customized logos and packaging.
“We didn’t design this bike just to be ridden. We designed it to be seen, taking our time to create the perfect blend of Dutch design and exceptional engineering.”
– Three Phase One campaign page
And for reference, the Three Phase One Indiegogo campaign promised their backers a very similar ebike as a reward for pledges at 2-3 times that amount.
After numerous negative comments on their Indiegogo page, the founder the Three Phase One team denied the accusations that they weren’t the original designers of the bike in a video update. And according to them, the Indiegogo team reviewed their project and gave them the go ahead to continue.
So far, the Electrip team hasn’t explained the remarkable similarities between their bike and the cheaper Alibaba ebike, though. Their project raised almost $400,000. And backers are still waiting for their ebike as of writing this post.
Paramedic Approved First Aid Kit
Once again, the detectives over on Reddit were hard at work. And this time their attention turned to a Californian paramedic and his first aid kit on Kickstarter.
“Paramedic Approved” promoted itself as a better equipped, high-quality first aid kit designed by an actual EMT. Pretty cool. But according to Redditor u/t_a_rogers, a reverse image search showed a very similar kit already for sale elsewhere.
Just like the Three Phase One, this is a product design that’s visually very similar to something that already exists. Plus, you could (apparently) get this very similar product at wholesale.
The difference here, though, is in the reaction from the creator. Whereas the Indiegogo ebike team denied all accusations, the “Paramedic Approved” campaign seems to hint at something different.
“I customized the Paramedic Approved first aid kits so that you can feel confident knowing an experienced medical professional hand-selected every item in your first aid kit.”
– Paramedic Approved Kickstarter page
We can only speculate how much customization took place.
But if the “Survival” kit linked to in the Reddit post is, in fact, the same kit seen on Kickstarter, then this Californian paramedic is different from the ebike campaign in another way. And that’s in his (apparent) markup.
The largest “Paramedic Approved” first aid kit was offered as a reward for $79 pledges. By comparison, the “Survival” first aid kit retails for over $130. So if this really is a resale of a product bought at wholesale, at least the backers got a decent discount.
Ryzor Pen
Lastly, let’s look at the funky shaver for funky hair in funky places. It’s the Ryzor Pen.
Ah, where to begin. This one hits a little closer to home for me because I’d chatted with the creator of the Ryzor campaign over on r/kickstarter. In a post that’s since been deleted, they asked for critiques on their pre-launch website. Little did I know what controversy was just around the corner.
Once again, the guys and gals over at r/shittykickstarters did their thing. They found yet another very similar product from China. Plus, some other strange coincidences.
As it turns out, small body hair trimmers are a pretty common product online. But u/owdeou managed to nail the Ryzor Pen design down to suspiciously similar product on AliExpress.
What’s more, the Ryzor Kickstarter campaign page also features some images that look very similar to images used on AliExpress. See an example by clicking the following links: Kickstarter model and AliExpress model.
The only visible difference between these two products is in the price.
The XPreen hair trimmer costs just $14 direct from China. But it takes a $40+ pledge on Kickstarter to earn backers their very own Ryzor hair trimmer. Free shipping, though!
So what’s the problem?
Let’s set aside the fact that reselling existing products is against both Kickstarter and Indiegogo rules for a minute. Just how harmful are the drop shippers for our favorite crowdfunding platforms?
If the campaign delivers their rewards and backers are willing to support the project, then what’s the problem?
A couple thoughts come to mind.
- As I wrote in a previous post, crowdfunding is built on trust. A campaign creator that misrepresents how their rewards were actually designed is on shaky ground. Can you trust anything that comes from the mouth of a liar?
- This has the potential for disaster.
Think about it.
If these platforms start allowing resellers on their sites without any oversight, what’s stopping a scammer from taking a bunch of design schematics and product images they find online? What happens if one of these campaigns just takes the money and runs?
On the other hand, if the campaign creator is upfront and honest about their campaign and backers know what they’re getting into, then crowdfunding resellers could offer rewards that are cheaper than retail.
I prefer campaigns to come from small creators with creative ideas. But if there are opportunities to join together and buy at wholesale, that’s actually a neat use crowdfunding, in my opinion.
Remember, only back projects that you trust and never pledge more money than you can afford to lose!
