Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Hicksville, New York

Charity organisers running a walk usually come to buttons once the route is settled and the sponsor logos have stopped changing, and what they want is one small thing that can be handed to every registrant at the sign-in table. A button does that job without a size chart, without anybody trying one on, and without a leftover box that only suits the people who ordered large. You upload the artwork, you pick a diameter, you pick a count, and the whole giveaway becomes a single line on the budget. This page is written for that order as it comes in from Hicksville.

## Orders here travel on the street address

We have no ZIP code on file for Hicksville. That sounds like a problem and it is not one, because nothing about an order depends on our having a ZIP stored for a place. The address you type at checkout is what gets used, in full, exactly as you enter it: street number, street name, town, state, ZIP. The carrier reads that address and the label is built from it.

Where it does matter is proofreading. Since there is no stored entry quietly standing behind what you type, the address you give is the address that is used. Check the street number and the apartment or suite line before you submit. If a fundraiser is shipping to a committee member's house rather than to an office, make sure the name on the shipping line is the name on the mailbox.

## What a hundred three inch buttons actually costs

A size reaching 100 moves every button of that size onto the lower rate. One is priced the same as one thousand. Here is the worked example most fundraiser orders sit near.

100 of the 3 inch button at $1.99 each, the 100 to 249 rate for that size, is $199.00 in buttons. Flat shipping for an order of that size is $9.99. The order comes to $208.99 before tax.

That is the entire calculation. The only quantity worth inflating is one sitting just under 100, 250 or 500 of a size, and then only because the bigger order is cheaper. If your headcount is 84, order 84 and pay for 84.

## The five sizes, and how to choose between them

The 1.5 inch at $1.89 each. The 2.25 inch at $1.99 each. The 3 inch at $2.49 each. All five are round, all five are full colour, and all five are printed from artwork you upload. Add the 1 inch at $1.49 and the 1.25 inch at $1.69 to that list, which are the two to reach for on a giveaway run.

Choose by what has to be readable. A logo mark and nothing else survives at 1.5 inch. Add a year or a short event name and 2.25 inch is the honest minimum. If the design carries a sponsor row, a cause ribbon, a person's name, or anything somebody is meant to read from a few feet away at a busy table, go to 3 inch. That is why the worked example above uses the largest size. Fundraiser artwork tends to carry more text than people expect when they start.

## The one place where your count changes the bill

Shipping is flat and it steps 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

This is the only spot where a headcount is worth a second look. An order of exactly 100 sits at the top of the first tier at $9.99. An order of 101 sits in the second tier at $14.99. That five dollar step comes from the tier, not from the buttons, because the per button price is identical either side of the line. So if you are at 104 because somebody asked for a few spares, decide whether those four spares are worth the step. If you are at 96, four spares cost you four buttons and nothing more.

## Artwork for something handed to strangers

A walk button gets looked at for about two seconds by a person holding a registration form and a water bottle. Design for that. High contrast, one dominant colour, and the cause or event name large enough to survive a glance. Keep anything important away from the outer edge, because a round button curves over its rim and elements sitting in the last few millimetres wrap out of sight.

If sponsors have supplied logos, ask each of them for the largest version they have rather than the one pulled off a web page. A logo that looks clean on screen at two inches wide can arrive at print size looking soft, and the sponsor is the one person in the room who will notice.

Committees running the same event year after year often keep one design and change only the year on it. That habit works comfortably at 3 inch and gets cramped at 1.5 inch, so pick the size with the reprint in mind rather than only this year's box.

## Getting the box to your committee

Hicksville sits 10.4 miles south west of the shop in Huntington, measured straight line, in Nassau County. We cover the nearby places as well: Jericho at 1.4 miles, New Cassel at 1.8 miles, Bethpage at 2.5 miles, Plainview at 3.1 miles and Westbury at 3.2 miles. If your committee is spread across a few of those, it is usually simpler to send the whole run to one person and divide it there than to split the order into several shipments and pay a shipping tier more than once.

Picking an order up in person instead of having it shipped is also an option.

## Four ways this order tends to arrive

The walk organiser. Your registration number keeps moving. The rate is worked out per order, so holding part of a run back can cost you the band the whole run would have reached.

The team captain. You want twenty or thirty for one team, in a design that belongs to your team rather than to the event. The 2.25 inch carries a team name and a short line of text comfortably, and thirty buttons sits well inside the first shipping tier.

The treasurer. You need a line item you can defend in a meeting. Two steps instead of one: find the band for that size's count, then multiply. Nothing else enters that number and nothing shifts underneath you between the estimate and the invoice.

The volunteer coordinator. You are the one standing at the table putting these into hands. Order the size people can read while walking past, and expect a handful to go astray, which is an argument for ordering spares rather than for dropping to a smaller size.

## Questions organisers ask us about this order

Our fundraiser ships to a Hicksville address and you have no ZIP on file for it. Is that a problem? No. Type your full street address at checkout, including the ZIP that belongs to that address, and the order ships on what you typed. Nothing needs to be stored on our side for the town itself.

Does the 10.4 mile distance to Hicksville change what we pay to ship? No. Shipping is flat and set by the total number of buttons on the order, not by how far the box travels. An address a mile from the shop and an address at that distance pay the same tier for the same count.

We need 100 of the 3 inch button for a Hicksville charity walk. What is the total? $199.00 for the buttons at $1.99 each, the 100 to 249 rate for that size, plus $9.99 flat shipping, which is $208.99 before tax.

If our Hicksville headcount grows from 100 to 110, what changes on the invoice? Crossing 100 takes every button to $1.99, so 110 of the 3 inch is $218.90 where 99 of them at $2.49 would be $246.51, and the shipping tier moves from $9.99 to $14.99. One rate per size per band, and every size uses the same band boundaries.

Our committee members live in Hicksville, Jericho and Westbury. Should we place three separate orders? Usually not. Three orders means three flat shipping charges instead of one, and splitting the count does not improve the per button price, because that price is the same for the first ninety-nine of a size. One shipment to one address, divided by hand afterwards, is the cheaper arrangement.