Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Oceanside, New York

An order for Oceanside is identified by the street address written on it rather than by a postal code, because there is no ZIP code on file for it in our system. Everything routes off the address line instead. That is a small thing to get right and an irritating thing to get wrong, so it is worth two minutes of attention at checkout before you start thinking about sizes, counts and artwork.

Getting the address block right

Write the house or building number and the street name in full, including any directional word or suffix that belongs to it. If the delivery point is an apartment, a unit, a rear entrance or a business inside a larger building, put that on its own line rather than trailing it after the street name, where it can be misread as part of the street itself. Then the town name, then New York. Nassau County does not need to appear on the label, although it is useful context if anyone ever has to ask us where an order was headed. If your bank or your own carrier uses a postal code for the address, you are welcome to enter it. Nothing on our side depends on it.

Five sizes, counted separately for the discount

There are five buttons and nothing else: 1 inch, 1.25 inch, 1.5 inch, 2.25 inch and 3 inch. All round, all pin-back, all printed in full colour from artwork you upload. The 1.5 inch is $1.89 per button. The 2.25 inch is $1.99 per button. The 3 inch is $2.49 per button. A 1 inch costs $1.49 and a 1.25 inch $1.69, which is where a large handout run usually starts.

The rate can only improve as a size's count grows, never worsen. They do not move with quantity. Twenty-five of the 2.25 inch cost $1.99 each, and eight hundred of them cost $1.39 each. Padding pays only at a boundary and only within one size, where 99 of a size costs more in total than 100 of it. The upside is that the arithmetic is honest. Multiply the size price by the count and you have the cost of the buttons, exactly.

The one number that does move

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

The rate is counted inside a single size and the shipping tier is counted across all of them. It is worth a glance before you submit.

A worked example at 251 buttons

Take 251 of the 2.25 inch button. At $1.49 each, the rate for 250 to 499 of a single size, that is $373.99 in buttons. An order of that size falls into the $19.99 shipping tier, so the order comes to $393.98 before tax.

Now drop a single button. At 250 the order sits in the $14.99 tier, and you save $5.00 on postage while giving up one button worth $1.99. Nobody at a merch table is going to miss button number 251. That is the only real adjustment available here, and notice that it is a quantity decision rather than a price negotiation.

How far the shop sits from you

In a straight line, Oceanside is 21.3 miles south west of the shop. We cover the places around it too, and several are close enough that the people on one order often turn out to live or play in another: East Rockaway at 1.6 miles, Rockville Centre at 1.7 miles, Baldwin Harbor at 1.8 miles, Island Park at 2.2 miles and Lynbrook at 2.3 miles. If the band is scattered across two or three of those, pick the one address that will actually be occupied when the box turns up and keep the buttons together on one order, so the count crosses a single shipping tier instead of two.

Artwork that still reads at button size

A button is a small circle, and the art has to work inside one. A logo that looks fine on a poster can turn into a smudge at 1.5 inches, so the standard advice is to simplify: fewer elements, heavier line weight, more contrast between the mark and whatever sits behind it. Type suffers first. A band name set in a thin condensed face may be perfectly legible on a screen and completely illegible pinned to a jacket. If the name is the point of the button, set it large and let it fill the circle.

Bear in mind as well that the printed circle wraps slightly around the edge of the shell. Anything you care about, a word, a face, a border, should sit comfortably in the middle rather than hugging the rim.

Choosing between the five sizes for a merch table

The 1.5 inch is the handful item, the one people take three of, the one that works as a throw-in with a record or a shirt. The 2.25 inch is the workhorse: large enough to carry a logo and a name together, small enough that the cost per button stays modest across a long run. The 3 inch is the one you sell on its own. It holds real artwork, a full cover image, a face, a detailed illustration.

Plenty of acts order two sizes at once, a small one to give away and a larger one to sell. 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.

Four people who end up placing this order

The act with one EP out. You need a single design, probably the one already on the cover, and a count you can carry in a bag. A hundred of the 1.5 inch stays inside the $9.99 shipping tier, which is a sensible place for a first run to sit.

The solo performer opening for somebody else. You are not filling a table, you are filling a corner of one. A large count of one size costs less per button than a small one, so order what you can genuinely hand out and then check whether a few more would cross 100, 250 or 500.

The friend running the table while the band plays. You did not design anything and you do not intend to. Get the file from whoever made the cover art, upload it, choose a size and a count. The order is priced by size and count and by nothing else.

The person booking three acts onto one bill. Three designs are three uploads, but if every button is going to the same address you can keep them on one order, which matters because the shipping tier counts total buttons rather than total designs.

Questions we actually get asked

What do I put in the postal code field for an Oceanside delivery?

Whatever your bank or carrier uses for that address, or nothing at all. We have no ZIP code on file here, and the order is identified by the street address regardless. County and state are enough context alongside it.

Half my band lives in Oceanside and half lives in East Rockaway. Should that be one order or two?

One, if you can. The shipping tier is calculated on the total buttons in a single order, so splitting the same buttons across two orders means paying two shipping charges. Send everything to whichever address someone will actually be at, and divide the box up at the next practice.

Is a 500 button run for an Oceanside show cheaper per button than a 50 button run?

Yes. 50 of one size pays the listed rate and 500 of it pays 30 percent under the listed rate. At 250 of one size the rate is a quarter below the listed one. Both figures change by steps rather than gradually, so the larger run costs more in shipping and, once it clears a band, less per button.

I have 251 buttons in the cart for an Oceanside release show. Is there any reason to change that?

Yes, one. At 251 you are one button over the 250 mark and into the $19.99 shipping tier. Removing one button puts you back into the $14.99 tier and saves $5.00 on postage, against a button worth $1.99 at the 2.25 inch size.

Can I put two different button sizes on the same Oceanside order?

Yes. Each size is priced at its own count and so its own rate per button, so a mixed order is just the two subtotals added together. Shipping then looks at the combined number of buttons across both sizes to decide which tier the order falls into.