Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Hauppauge, New York

Pin-back buttons for clubs and societies

An order for Hauppauge is routed by the ZIP code sitting in the address field, not by the town name written above it, and that is worth knowing before you fill anything in. The name on its own does not settle where a box goes. The five digits do. Get those right and the order is pointed correctly from the moment it is placed, whether it is going to a meeting hall, an office suite, or the home of whoever volunteered to hold the carton until the next meeting.

Three ZIP codes under one name

Most of the places we cover answer to a single ZIP code. Hauppauge answers to three: 11749, 11760 and 11788. All five are valid destinations and none of them is more correct than the others in the abstract. What matters is which one belongs to the address you are actually sending buttons to. If your club rents one room and the treasurer collects mail somewhere else entirely, those two addresses may well carry different codes, and the order follows the code you type rather than the one you are used to writing on newsletters.

The practical advice is dull and it works. Copy the address exactly as it appears on the piece of mail that reliably reaches the person who will be handing the buttons out. Do not reconstruct it from memory, and do not assume a second code is a typo because you have only ever seen the first. Three codes for one name is unusual, and it trips up people who are otherwise careful.

What each size costs

There are five round sizes and nothing else. The 1.5 inch button is $1.89 each. The 2.25 inch button is $1.99 each. The 3 inch button is $2.49 each. For a lapel pin rather than a badge, the 1 inch is $1.49 and the 1.25 inch is $1.69.

At 250 of one size the rate is a quarter below the listed one. The first button costs what the five hundredth costs. Nothing is hidden, so there is nothing to hunt for. There are three thresholds and they are printed above. This is genuinely simpler than it sounds: you can work out the button cost of any order with one multiplication and be done.

A club order, worked out in full

Say a committee orders 240 of the 1.5 inch button. At $1.51 each, the published 100 to 249 figure, the buttons come to $362.40. Flat shipping for an order of that size is $14.99. The order comes to $377.39 before tax.

That is the whole calculation. A thousand of one size is held back for a quote, and 240 of a size is 20 percent under the rate 24 of it pays.

Where the quantity actually matters

Shipping is a flat charge decided by the total number of buttons on the order. Up to 100 buttons it is $9.99. Up to 250 it is $14.99. Up to 500 it is $19.99. Up to 1000 it is $24.99.

This is the one place where a round number is worth a second look. The 240 button order above sits just under the 250 line. Trimming it slightly changes nothing about shipping. Pushing it past 250, though, moves the order into the $19.99 tier, and the per button price does not fall to compensate, because it never falls. So if you are hovering around that line while deciding whether to add a few spares, it is worth knowing which side of it you land on. The difference is in the shipping charge alone.

How far east you are

Hauppauge is 10.7 miles east of the shop as a straight line on the map, not as a route. Several places we also cover sit closer to you than the shop does: Smithtown Pines at 2.1 miles, Smithtown at 2.2 miles, Islandia at 2.4 miles, Central Islip at 3.1 miles and Nesconset at 3.2 miles, all measured the same straight line way. If your membership is drawn from more than one of those, nothing about the ordering changes. One order, one destination address, one flat shipping charge for the order.

The artwork side

Buttons are printed full colour from artwork you upload with the order. A crest, a chapter logo, lettering, a founding year, a badge for a committee role: it is all the same job on our end. The same artwork can be ordered at more than one size, and each size is simply charged at its own ladder, climbed on its own count.

If you are ordering several designs at once, keep them clearly separated when you upload so that the right image lands on the right quantity. Clubs that run an annual design plus a couple of standing ones tend to trip on this more than anything else in the process.

Who tends to be holding the order form

The organiser placing the club's first order. You are probably ordering for a headcount you only half know, and you want the arithmetic to be predictable. It is. Pick a size, multiply by the number of members, add the shipping tier that the total falls into. If you decide to order spares for people who join later, the spares cost exactly what the originals cost.

The treasurer working to a figure approved at a meeting. You need a number you can read out and defend. The arithmetic is still one multiplication. You read the rate off the band your count lands in first. Nothing is estimated and nothing is adjusted afterwards because of how large or small the order turned out to be.

The committee member who inherited the job. Whoever ran this last year may have left you a note with an address and a size on it. Confirm the ZIP code against something current before you reuse it, since a Hauppauge address that was right two years ago may belong to a different room now, and with three codes in play a stale address is easy to miss.

The society running roles rather than membership. If you need one design for officers and another for everyone else, that is two designs on one order. The shipping tier counts every button on the order together, regardless of how many designs or sizes are in it.

Questions we get

Our members live under all three Hauppauge ZIP codes. Does that affect the order? No. The ZIP codes matter only for the single address the order is being sent to. Where members live has no bearing on the price or on the shipping charge.

I have seen 11749, 11760 and 11788 all written as Hauppauge. Which one goes on the order? The one attached to the address that will receive the buttons. Use the code that appears on mail that already reaches that address, rather than picking whichever you recognise.

What does 240 of the 1.5 inch button come to for a Hauppauge club? $362.40 for the buttons, plus $14.99 flat shipping, so $377.39 before tax.

Does a larger order for a Hauppauge chapter lower the price per button? Yes, within a single size. The ladder is per size: 1 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499 and 500 to 999, with the best online rate in the last of those. Crossing 100 of a size takes 20 percent off every one of them, not just the hundredth. There is a step on the buttons and a step on the postage, and they are not the same step.

Our Hauppauge committee wants two sizes on one order. How is shipping counted? By the total number of buttons on the order, with both sizes added together. Splitting the same buttons across two separate orders instead means each order carries its own flat shipping charge.