The solutions described in this case study were provided by Coyote Logistics prior to their acquisition by RXO, Inc., and the teams responsible for designing and executing them are now part of RXO.
Who Is Cephalofair Games?
Cephalofair Games is an internationally respected board game design and publishing company with a reputation for crafting for complex, strategic tabletop games. Their small global team is best known for their breakout hit Gloomhaven and its various expansions including Jaws of the Lion and Forgotten Circles.
Services They Rely On:
Challenges and Results
Cephalofair Games’ Challenge:
Executing a fulfillment project to deliver more than 62,000 copies of their new tabletop role-playing game, Frosthaven, to customers who participated in a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Results With Us:
By pooling our resources and expertise with those of a warehousing solutions provider and small pack delivery provider, Cephalofair Games was able to get Frosthaven in the hands of their most dedicated fans with a near-instantaneous rollout across North America.
Leveling Up to Meet Momentous Customer Demand
Cephalofair Games has been at the forefront of the tabletop gaming world since the 2017 release of Gloomhaven, which has sold more than 400,000 copies and garnered praise and awards across the industry.
To follow up this groundbreaking success, Cephalofair Games announced a sequel, Frosthaven, with a Kickstarter campaign in 2020. This would go on to be the highest-ever funded campaign for a game in Kickstarter’s history with more than 83,000 backers contributing over $13 million.
By the time Frosthaven was ready to ship in fall 2022, Cephalofair was committed to delivering 62,000 individual game packages to customers across North America, each weighing more than 30 pounds. This created a unique shipping and fulfillment challenge – just the type that calls out for a project freight solution.
Meeting All Objectives With an End-to-End Solution
The challenge involved in this undertaking was not lost on Cephalofair Games’ C-suite. “I’ve been told at just about every turn that this is the largest fulfillment project our industry has seen to date,” said COO Price Johnson.
To get the ball rolling, they first reached out to their warehousing and fulfillment partner. They laid out a wish list of services for their desired end-to-end solution which would include:
- Ocean freight to move containers of games from China (where they are produced) to the U.S.
- Drayage and transloading upon arrival at a U.S. port.
- Warehousing capacity in strategic locations across North America.
- Inbound and outbound freight capacity.
- Small pack delivery of Frosthaven game sets to paying customers.
Cephalofair Games’ warehousing provider took the lead as their single point of contact throughout the project, coordinating with us for the LTL and truckload freight capacity involved in executing the solution. All told, between July 25 and October 17, 2022, we worked together with the two other providers to move:
- 100+ ocean containers.
- 259 LTL shipments.
- 62,000 package deliveries.
The success of this project doesn’t just mean thousands of happy Cephalofair customers. It was a proof of concept for the growing business that our pooled resources could support bigger, more ambitious product rollouts down the road.
“This is really going to provide us the ability to flex our muscles on the next project and not have to worry about what our logistical infrastructure looks like,” Johnson said. “This is going to really open up doors for us as a publisher.”
