Print-to-Order Products

For all of my current projects I use The Gamecrafter, a print-to-order company based out of Wisconsin.

 

 

As a one-man shop who does game design as a hobby and not a full-time business, this means I don't have to worry about dealing with factories, stocking, shipments, warehousing, mailing, dealing with returns, etc.

 

The downside is that costs are higher, and products are not shipped for 1-2 weeks once ordered.  This generally depends on your place in the queue of orders.  When placing an order, you can see what number you are on your order details.  It will frequently be between 800-1200, and I find the folks at The Gamecrafter tend to plow through roughly 100 orders per business day.

 

They provide a pessimistic "estimated shipping date" which seems to be based on worst-case scenarios, as I've never had them ship anywhere near the projected date.  They have always shipped far sooner than advertised.

 

There is an option to pay double the price to push your order to the front of the line (sadly the designer gets no cut of this additional 100% profit...), but I don't believe anyone is in that kind of a rush to buy a game or some tokens!