Yup. When I worked at GW (1994, Jeebus I’m old) they’d negotiated rates with Royal Mail – good ones too. Very few KSes will have the clout to negotiate on postage, some may also have the business sense to do it.

Maybe this will help some of you kick the overseas plasticrack KS habit (: but KS creators don’t have clout with overseas plastics manufacturers, either. With Myth (still waiting) the plastic manufacturer tried to pull a fast one by changing the plastic used between the sample and final production. Myth caught them, and had to use their leverage that they didn’t pay the balance of the cost to manufacturer to force them to use better plastic. Various overseas KS have mentioned that you need to have someone fly overseas to make sure the manufacturing is going properly — and I’m sure someone who speaks the same language and has a rep who can visit the factories more often is more reliable (eg. CMON, which is located in Shanghai, China, iirc). I was in a failed KS, where the creator had to restart production because the QC failed (one of the Cthulhu dice KS), and the manufacturer had to find him a time slot, rather than prioritizing his project over others.

I’ve also noticed that some KS have “outside investors” which I tag as a yellow-flag. Worst is that they’re not mentioned during the campaign, although a low target funding may indicate one in hindsight. The money from these investors are needed to fund the *real* cost of the KS, and, because they control the purse strings, these investors have MORE control over the project than the backers and sometimes more control over the project than the creator wants, adding “too many cooks” risk to the project. A Fairytale Battle Royale KS had an investor pull out, and a boardgame even had the investor adding a board of directors (?) to a boardgaming project. Neither went well.

Unfortunately, while these risks (and “been there, rolled that” dice mechanics) keep me from funding KS that I’ve been on the fence for, they still haven’t kept me from the holiday sales. Just picked up a Mantic orc starter and undead starter on sale when I already have boxes of the same mini’s that haven’t been painted years ago… 😛