Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Islandia, New York

An order for Islandia is identified by the postal address you type at checkout, and in practice that means one of two ZIP codes, 11749 or 11760, sitting inside the Town of Islip in Suffolk County. Either one tells us where the box is going. Nothing else about the order changes because of which one you use. People here sometimes write the township on the label, sometimes the village, sometimes neither, and the run of buttons is made and boxed the same way regardless. If the address is right, the order is routed.

That matters more than it sounds, because this part of Suffolk County is dense with named places that sit almost on top of each other, and a merch order for a band is rarely going to a single person.

Where the label actually points

The address block on the order is the only thing that decides routing. If the buttons are going to whoever handles the merch table, put that person's address on the order, not the rehearsal space, not the venue, not the address the band uses on its mailing list. A run of buttons is a physical box. It goes where the label says.

If two people in the group live under different ZIP codes, pick one and stay with it. There is no benefit to splitting a single run across two addresses, and no penalty for keeping it under one. The price per button is set by the count for each size rather than by the address, and the flat shipping tier is calculated on the total number of buttons on the order, not on where in Suffolk County they land.

Five neighbours inside three miles

The unusual thing about ordering from here is how close the surrounding coverage sits. Ronkonkoma is 1.7 miles away. Central Islip is 2.0 miles. Hauppauge is 2.4 miles, Nesconset is 3.0 miles, and North Great River is 3.1 miles. All five of the nearest places we cover fall inside a 3.1 mile band around Islandia.

For a small act that plays a rotating set of local rooms, that compression is useful. The people who might take a handful of buttons off your hands, the friend who runs the sound at one venue, the bass player who fills in for two other groups, the person who prints your flyers, are all within a few miles of each other. One order can cover a lot of ground without anyone driving far to hand the box off.

The straight line distance from the shop is 13.0 miles to the south east. That is measured point to point, not along any road.

Five sizes, and what each one costs

There are five round pin-back buttons and nothing else. The 1.5 inch is $1.89 each. The 2.25 inch is $1.99 each. The 3 inch is $2.49 each. A 1 inch costs $1.49 and a 1.25 inch $1.69, which is where a large handout run usually starts.

A size's own count picks its rate, not the order total. The 1.5 inch button costs $1.89, and a count of 100 or more of one size takes 20 percent off that figure. Padding pays only at a boundary and only within one size, where 99 of a size costs more in total than 100 of it. What you pay per button at ten is what you pay per button at a thousand.

All five are full colour and printed from artwork you upload with the order.

A worked example at 150 buttons

Take a common shape for a merch order: 150 of the 3 inch button, which is the size that reads from across a room and is hard to mistake for anyone else's pin.

150 at $1.99 each, 20 percent off because the count clears 100, is $298.50 in buttons. Flat shipping for an order of that size is $14.99. The order comes to $313.49 before tax.

The only part of that total that moves in steps is the shipping. The tiers go by the total number of buttons on the order: up to 100 is $9.99, up to 250 is $14.99, up to 500 is $19.99, and up to 1000 is $24.99. Which means 150 buttons and 250 buttons carry exactly the same $14.99 shipping charge. If you are sitting at 150 and you know you want a second design, the extra hundred buttons add nothing to the shipping line. They still cost full price per button. Nothing about them is discounted. But they do not push the order into a higher tier, which is worth knowing before you decide to place a second order later instead.

The same logic runs the other way. An order of 105 buttons pays the same $14.99 as an order of 250. If you only ever wanted 95, staying at or under 100 keeps you in the $9.99 tier.

Choosing between the sizes

The 1.5 inch is the one that reads as a pin rather than a badge. It is the size people put on a jacket collar or a bag strap without thinking about it, and the size you can hand out freely because it costs the least per piece.

The 2.25 inch is the general purpose one. It holds a band name and a piece of artwork legibly at arm's length, and it is the size most people picture when they think of a button.

The 3 inch is the large one. A logo, a tour name, a single image with no small type: that is what this size is for. It costs $2.49 against the $1.49 of the 1 inch, so a run of 150 in the large size is a real step up in cost over the same run in the smallest. Whether that is worth it depends on whether the button is meant to be noticed or meant to be given away in volume.

Four ways a merch order gets placed

The duo playing a first show. You have one design, no budget to speak of, and no idea how many will move. The 1.5 inch at $1.89 keeps the total low under a hundred, and staying under 100 buttons keeps shipping at $9.99. It is the cheapest way to find out whether anyone wants one.

The person who runs the table. You are not in the band, you are the one with the cash box, and you want the line on the table to be simple. One size, one price, no mental arithmetic while someone is handing you a ten. Pick a single size and order it in the quantity that fits the run of shows ahead.

The solo act with a design that changes. Every few months there is a new image. Two orders of two hundred are two counts of two hundred, while one order of four hundred is a single count of four hundred and sits a band lower. The only thing to watch is the shipping tier, so combining two designs into one order is usually the cheaper route.

The group sharing a bill. Two or three acts on the same night, each wanting their own button, one person placing the order. Add the quantities together first. The tier is set by the total on the order, not per design, so a combined order of 200 pays $14.99 once instead of two orders paying $9.99 apiece.

Questions people ask

Which ZIP code should an Islandia order use, 11749 or 11760? Whichever one the postal address actually carries. Both are handled identically. The ZIP is routing information, not a category.

We rehearse in Ronkonkoma but the mail goes to Islandia. Which address should the order be sent to? The one where someone will be there to take the box. Both places are covered, so pick on convenience, not on coverage.

What does 150 of the 3 inch button come to for an Islandia order? $298.50 in buttons at $1.99 each, 20 percent off because the count clears 100, plus $14.99 flat shipping, for $313.49 before tax.

If an Islandia order goes from 100 buttons up to 150, does the price per button drop? No, not between those two counts: 100 and 150 both sit in the 100 to 249 band for a single size. Nothing about the rate changes until one size reaches 100. What changes is the shipping tier, which moves from $9.99 to $14.99 once the order passes 100 buttons.

Our Islandia order is sitting at 260 buttons. Which shipping tier is that? The up to 500 tier, at $19.99. Trimming to 250 would put it back in the $14.99 tier.