Fulfilment Companies

Fulfilment companies are there to do a lot of the work for you. Storing your comics, packing and shipping them to buyers… all you have to do is send your comics to them and they’ll handle the rest (for a fee of course). Sounds pretty great right?

There are a few benefits to partnering with a distribution company.

Shipping is hard. Distribution requires a ton of time and effort and with the thousand other things self published creators have to worry about, it’s nice to let someone else handle some of the work.
Fulfilment companies get reduced shipping costs. Because they ship so much stuff, fulfilment companies often get special deals from postal services. This is especially beneficial if you’re shipping a very large number of packages or a lot of international orders.
Many companies also handle warehousing your comics. Some people don’t have the space to store their own comics. Fulfilment companies can handle that for you, and usually at a discounted price since they’re already storing a lot of stuff.

Of course, these benefits come with a cost. You’re going to have to pay for these services and if you’re shipping a smaller quantity of packages, they’ll probably be more expensive then if you did everything yourself.

It’s a tradeoff between time and price and ultimately a decision you’ll have to make for yourself. Either way, make sure to research each of your options thoroughly so you can make a smart decision about which is best for you.

There are also some comic printers that offer their own fulfilment plans: