Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Melville, New York

The first real decision on an order coming out of Melville is whether to collect the buttons in person or have them sent, and at this end of the township that is a genuine choice rather than a formality. Collection costs nothing. Shipping costs a flat amount set only by how many buttons are on the order, so it is a known figure before you commit to anything. Which one makes sense usually comes down to whether somebody on your end is already heading north anyway, and whether the buttons need to land in one pair of hands or several.

Collect or ship, and how to decide

Work it from the shipping side first, because that is the part with a number attached. Flat shipping is $9.99 for an order up to 100 buttons, $14.99 up to 250, $19.99 up to 500, and $24.99 up to 1000. Those are the whole cost of getting an order to you. If that figure is smaller than the hassle of arranging a pickup, ship it. If one person in the office is making the trip regardless, collect it and keep the shipping line off the invoice entirely.

The straight line distance is 6.8 miles, due south of the shop. That is close enough that collecting is a perfectly normal thing to do, and far enough that nobody should feel odd about paying the flat shipping instead. There is no penalty either way and no discount attached to either choice.

One place, three ZIP codes

Melville sits across 11747, 11760 and 11775, which is more ZIP codes than most of the places we cover, and it matters more than it sounds. When an order is going to a workplace rather than a house, the address on the order and the address people actually sit at are not always the same one. Buildings on the same campus can carry different codes, and mail rooms do not always forward internally.

So confirm the delivery address with whoever receives packages before you place the order, not after. Shipping is priced per order by the total number of buttons on it, which means one order goes to one address. If the buttons genuinely need to reach two separate receiving points, the clean way to handle it is two orders, each with its own flat shipping tier. Sixty of one design and sixty of another at the same size is one hundred and twenty of that size, and both lines are discounted.

What the buttons cost

Five sizes, all round, all full colour, all printed from artwork you upload.

• The 1 inch, $1.49 each
• The 1.25 inch, $1.69 each
• The 1.5 inch, $1.89 each
• The 2.25 inch, $1.99 each
• The 3 inch, $2.49 each

The rate steps at three counts and holds level between them. It is the same at ten buttons and the same at a thousand. There is a reason to round up now, but only one. Landing on 100, 250 or 500 of one size moves every button of that size onto a lower rate. The rate band and the shipping tier both step, and they are counted from different totals.

A worked example

Say a workplace committee wants 40 of the 3 inch button, the big one, because there is a logo and a line of text to fit and the extra face gives both room to breathe. At $2.49 each, 40 buttons is $99.60 in buttons. An order of that size sits in the first shipping tier, so shipping is $9.99. The order comes to $109.59 before tax.

If the same group had collected instead, the total would simply be the $99.60. And if they had ordered the 1.5 inch at $1.89 or the 2.25 inch at $1.99, the shipping would not have changed at all, because shipping follows the count and not the size.

One thing worth watching. The first tier covers up to 100 buttons at $9.99, and a single button past 100 moves the whole order to $14.99. If your headcount has you landing just above a tier line, it is worth a second look at the number before you order. Trimming back to 100 saves five dollars on shipping. Going up to 250 does not cost any more than 101 does. Neither decision touches the price per button.

Artwork and what goes on them

Buttons print in full colour from the file you upload, which for an awareness month campaign usually means a ribbon or a colour block, a short line of text and some version of the organisation mark. A few practical notes on that.

Round is round, so anything that reads as a rectangle needs to survive being cropped into a circle. Keep text away from the outer edge, because the outermost ring of the printed area wraps around the curve of the button and is not read straight on. Small type at 1.5 inch gets tight quickly, which is the usual reason a group steps up to 2.25 inch or 3 inch. Solid colour behind white text reads more cleanly at button scale than fine line art does.

If there are two designs in play, for instance one for staff and one for visitors, they are simply two line items. The price per button is identical on both.

Four ways people come to this

If you are the one organising the workplace campaign, you are probably the only person thinking about it in detail, and you will be asked for a number before you have one. Price the design you want at all five sizes, pick the size on how the artwork reads rather than on cost, then bring a count to the group. The published rate for each band means a late change to the count changes the total and nothing else.

If you handle purchasing and someone has dropped this on your desk, the whole quote is two numbers. Buttons at the printed rate ladder times the quantity, plus one shipping figure from the tier table. Nothing else appears later.

If you are volunteering on a staff committee and spending your own budget, collecting is the version with no shipping line on it at all. That is the only lever, and it is a real one.

If you only need a handful for a small team, there is no quantity floor to clear and no rate you are missing out on by ordering small. A dozen buttons costs twelve times the per button price.

Ordering from nearby

Plenty of orders that start at one workplace end up covering people who live all over. We cover Wheatley Heights, 2.3 miles away, South Huntington at 2.8 miles, West Hills at 3.0 miles, Old Bethpage at 3.1 miles and Wyandanch, also 3.1 miles. If a neighbouring group is running the same campaign, one combined order carries one shipping charge rather than two, and the two counts for a size add together, so combining can put both sides into a cheaper band. It is purely a shipping decision.

Questions we get asked

Can I collect a Melville order instead of paying for shipping? Yes. Local pickup is free, and choosing it removes the shipping charge from the order completely. Nothing else about the order changes.

Our staff in Melville sit in two different buildings. Can one order go to both? No, one order ships to one address. Place two orders and each carries its own flat shipping tier based on its own button count. The per button price is the same on both.

Does the price per button drop if our Melville workplace orders a large quantity? Yes, within a single size. The break is real and it is printed: 20 percent at 100 of a size, 25 at 250, 30 at 500. 20 and 1000 of one size are not the same rate any more: 20 pays the listed rate, and 1000 of a single size is where a quote takes over from an automatic price. A size reaching 100 moves every button of that size onto the lower rate.

Which ZIP codes in Melville do you cover? 11747, 11760 and 11775, all of them. Use whichever one the receiving address actually uses rather than the one on the letterhead.

Our Melville order lands just over 100 buttons. Is that worth adjusting? It can be. Up to 100 buttons ships at $9.99 and anything above that moves to the $14.99 tier, which holds all the way to 250. If you are one or two buttons over the line, deciding whether to trim down or add more is worth a moment. The button price itself is unaffected by either choice.