Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Floral Park

The first real decision on an order out this way is not the artwork and not the size, it is whether you intend to collect the buttons in person or have them shipped to you. Both doors are open, and collection costs nothing, but a trip in both directions is still a trip, and shipping is a flat charge that lands on the order once no matter how the day goes. For anyone ordering from Floral Park, that is the part of the order that depends on where you happen to be rather than on what you want printed, so it is worth settling before you open a design file.

Weighing the trip against one flat charge

The straight line distance from the shop is 19.5 miles, in a south west direction. That is a measurement taken off a map, not off a road, and it is not a statement about traffic or routes, so treat it as a sense of scale rather than a plan. What it tells you is that Floral Park is far enough out that the trip is a deliberate errand rather than something you fold into an existing route, and that is the honest frame for the choice. Some people will collect anyway, because they are already coming this direction, or because they would rather take the boxes into their own hands. Other people look at one flat shipping charge covering the whole order and decide that is the simpler answer. Neither choice changes the price of a single button, which is the useful thing to know: you are comparing a trip against a shipping line, and nothing else on the order moves.

Getting the right name onto the order

There is a small practical wrinkle here worth naming out loud. The town shares a name root with New Hyde Park, 1.1 miles away, and with North New Hyde Park, 1.7 miles away, and all three carry the same word at the end. Address fields, autofill, and volunteers typing into a shared spreadsheet all confuse them. If the buttons are going out to a shipping address, read the town line back to yourself once before you submit, and check the ZIP with it. Floral Park uses 11001 and 11004, and if you see one of those next to a town name that is not yours, something autofilled wrong. The same care applies when people are passing the order details around. Elmont is 1.3 miles away, Franklin Square is 2.2 miles, and Garden City South is 2.5 miles, and a group of organisers spread across a few of those will produce a few different versions of the delivery address if nobody pins down one.

Five sizes, and what actually changes between them

We make round pin-back buttons in five sizes and nothing else: 1 inch, 1.25 inch, 1.5 inch, 2.25 inch and 3 inch. The 1.5 inch is $1.89 each. The 2.25 inch is $1.99 each. The 3 inch is $2.49 each. There is also a 1 inch at $1.49 and a 1.25 inch at $1.69, which is where most large giveaway runs land.

Nothing here is negotiated: the band your count lands in sets the rate. The price per button at ten is the price per button at a thousand, and there is no quantity at which a lower rate switches on. This is stated plainly because people expect the opposite and then budget around a discount that does not exist. Plan your spend by multiplying, not by hoping the number bends.

What changes between the sizes is how much room the artwork gets. The 1.5 inch reads as a name, a short slogan, or a single strong mark, and detail gets lost quickly. The 2.25 inch is the size most people picture when they picture a button, and it holds a line of text above a mark comfortably. The 3 inch is the one you choose when the design has to be legible from across a room or a table, or when there are two lines of text and a logo fighting for the same circle. All five are printed full colour from artwork you upload.

A run of 400 at the 3 inch size

Here is the arithmetic on a real order shape. Four hundred of the 3 inch button at $1.87 each, the band rate once 250 of one size are on the order, is $748.00 in buttons. Flat shipping for an order of that size is $19.99. The order comes to $767.99 before tax.

Nothing in that total is a rate that unlocked at 400. The $748.00 is simply 400 multiplied by the same $1.87 anyone pays for one.

Where the shipping tiers step

Shipping is flat and is set by the total number of buttons on the order:

• up to 100 buttons, $9.99
• up to 250 buttons, $14.99
• up to 500 buttons, $19.99
• up to 1000 buttons, $24.99

The tiers are counted on the whole order, not per size, so mixing sizes on one order does not split the charge. The place to pay attention is a count that lands just above a boundary. A number just over 250 moves you from $14.99 to $19.99, and that same $19.99 then carries you all the way up to 500. If your count sits a little past 250 and you have any reason to want more buttons, the shipping line will not move again until you pass 500.

Preparing artwork for a circle

Two things catch people out. The first is that a button is a circle and your design is almost certainly a rectangle, so decide early what happens at the corners. The second is that the printed sheet wraps around the curved edge before it is fixed at the back, so a band around the outside of your design curves away from a face-on view. Keep names, dates, web addresses and anything else that has to be read inside a comfortable margin, and let background colour or pattern run past the edge rather than important content. Upload artwork at the largest size you have. A file that looks sharp at thumbnail size will not necessarily hold together at 3 inch.

Four people ordering the same button for different reasons

The volunteer coordinator. You are handing these to people who will wear them at doors and at tables, and you need a count that covers everyone plus the people who turn up unannounced. Order by headcount and then add the margin you actually expect, because a second order carries its own flat shipping.

The first time candidate. Your budget is a fixed number someone else is watching. Multiply the per button price by the count, add the shipping tier, and you have your line item. You no longer have to guess where the break sits, which means you can order your real number and then look up whether a few more would cost less.

The single issue committee. Your design usually carries more words than a name does, and words are the first thing to fail at small sizes. This is the case for the 3 inch even when the count makes it tempting to drop down.

The treasurer. You need an exact figure before approval, not an estimate. Button total plus shipping tier, before tax, is the whole calculation, and it does not change between the quote and the order.

Straight answers to five common questions

Is collecting worth it from Floral Park, or should I just pay the shipping? Only you can weigh that. Collection costs nothing and shipping is a single flat charge set by the button count. Every figure in the ladder is published, so the comparison is a round trip against one line on the invoice.

My mailing address says Floral Park but the ZIP is 11004. Is that a problem? No. Both 11001 and 11004 are used there. What matters is that the town line and the ZIP on the order agree with each other and match the address you actually want the boxes at.

Do I pay less per button in Floral Park if I order 500 instead of 100? Yes. 100 of the 1.5 inch is $1.51 each and 500 of it is $1.32 each, because 500 reaches the 500 to 999 band. The per button figure drops 20 percent at 100 of a size and keeps dropping at 250 and 500. Up to 99 of one size there is no discount, and from 100 of it there is.

Can a Floral Park order mix all five sizes and still pay one shipping charge? Yes. The tier is based on the total number of buttons on the order, whatever the mix of sizes, so 100 of one size and 150 of another are counted together as 250.

What does 400 of the 3 inch size come to for a Floral Park order? $748.00 for the buttons, plus $19.99 flat shipping, which is $767.99 before tax.