Supply Chain A-Z
Let’s talk about the board game supply chain.
Manufacture
The first step in the board game supply chain is manufacture. The publisher contracts a manufacturer who then becomes a project manager for sourcing components and assembling the game.
There are a few key points I want to highlight and misconceptions I want to clear up around manufacture.
Manufacturers as Project Managers: When you contract a manufacturer you are contracting them both for their in-house capabilities as well as their ability to source specialty components. They are essentially the project manager for your game.
Nearly all Chinese based manufacturers have capabilities for most printed components (although there may be specific sizing or dies that they don’t have), many have in house wooden components, and very few have plastics in house. I don’t know of any manufacturers who also have metals or epoxies in house.
If you have dice, a plastic insert, metal coins, miniatures, etc. it is almost guaranteed that some of your components will be outsourced to specialty parts manufacturers.
I wrote up an article on the infrastructure and ecosystem of games manufacturing in China: Industrial Clusters & Board Game Manufacturing.
US Made: There are no economically viable options for manufacturing board games at scale in the US. The US has tons of print shops, and if your game consists of just cards, chip board, and a box, there are local options.
However, the US does not have specialty components manufacturers or the geographic concentration of manufacturing necessary to make domestic board games manufacturing viable.
Even print on demand companies that most indie designers are familiar with (Print & Play, The Game Crafter, etc), import components like meeples and dice.
Looking for a Manufacturer? I put together a pretty comprehensive take on How to Find a Manufacturer. If you’re in the market for a manufacturer for your game, I highly recommend giving it a read. It covers everything from how to query games, lists and links to manufacturers, how to due diligence your partners, and plenty more tips and tricks.
Freight
The freight process takes games from the factory floor to domestic fulfillment and distribution partners. It encompasses everything from trucking games to port, shipping games, and navigating customs. You’ll contract two parties to help navigate the freight process.
Freight Forwarder: The freight forwarder books transport and manages the process of taking your product from your manufacturer to delivery at your fulfillment provider.
Customs Broker: The customs broker handles the customs process for your shipment and ensures that it clears customs in good order and with the appropriate documentation.
There are a lot of variables around freight such as whether you take delivery of games at the factory (ex-work) or at the departure port (freight on board / free on board), what method of transport you use, timeline to delivery, and how games are palletized or floor loaded to save on costs.
I wrote up a comprehensive guide to help indie publishers navigate booking and managing international freight: Arranging International Freight.
Throughout the process it’s important to communicate with your manufacturer, freight forwarder, and distribution center to ensure a smooth process and get ahead of any potential issues.
Distribution
The final step in the supply chain is getting games into consumers hands. There are a few routes that games can take.
Direct to Consumer: Direct to consumer sales are when a company sells directly to their end users.
Direct to Retail: Direct to retail sales are when a company sells to retail stores who then sell to consumers.
Distributor & Wholesale: Distributors act as intermediaries between publishers and retailers. Publishers sell games to distributors in bulk. Distributors then sell games into their network of retail stores. Distributors make it easy for retail stores to stock their shelves by offering a catalogue of games from a range of publishers. They also allow retailers to order a smaller unit quantity of a specific game (although overall order sizes will be larger).
The vast majority of board game sales go through distributors and onto either brick and mortar or online retailers. For instance, according to Stonemaier Games 90% of their games sold pre 2019 were through distributors.
That said, the ratio of games sold through each channel will be highly dependent on how mature a company is. Newer companies (like us) have the vast majority of our games sold direct to consumer, and then to a lesser degree direct to retail (we have one pending order where we are ironing the details out with a distributor).
When freighting games to a distributor, you can either freight them directly to the distributor’s warehouse, or freight them from your fulfillment center to the distributor – which maybe more economical depending on your shipment size and how games are packaged into a container (i.e. not splitting a container).
Regardless of the ratio of games going into distribution, publishers will either partner with a fulfillment center, or manage fulfilment out of their own facilities.
We’re partnering with Fulfillrite for our fulfillment. They have solid rates, I’ve found them easy to work with, and importantly they have the technology to tie in directly with our webstore.
I haven’t written a lot on how to find a fulfillment partner, so would defer readers to Jamey Stegmaier’s blog where he covers the topic in depth: Shipping & Fulfillment.
Do you buy your games directly from publishers, through online, or brick and mortar retailers?
