Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Port Jefferson

Every order that starts out here begins with the same honest decision: do you drive in and collect the boxes yourself, or do you have them sent to you? Neither answer is the clever one. It depends on the size of the order, on whether anyone on your committee was heading west anyway, and on what the shipping charge works out to once the button count is settled. Port Jefferson sits far enough east that the trip is an errand in its own right rather than a detour, which is exactly why the choice is worth making on purpose instead of by default.

Collecting versus having it sent

Collecting costs nothing beyond the trip itself. There is no shipping charge on an order you pick up, so the entire difference between the two routes is the flat postage figure attached to your button count. That figure is a tier, not a per item cost, so it behaves differently from everything else on the invoice. An order of 80 badges and an order of 100 badges carry the same $9.99. An order of 260 and an order of 500 both carry $19.99.

That makes the comparison easy to run before you commit. Work out your total button count, read the tier off the list below, and weigh that single number against the trip. Either way you are comparing one number to one trip, and you can do it in your head.

Where the 17.6 miles actually matters

The straight line distance from the shop to Port Jefferson is 17.6 miles, due east. Straight line is the honest way to state it, because the road distance and what the road is doing on any given afternoon are not ours to promise. What the figure is good for is planning. It tells you the collection option is a real commitment of somebody's afternoon rather than a footnote.

For a volunteer run event, that usually settles it one way or the other. If a member of your group already passes through on a regular basis, collecting is straightforward and it takes the postage line off the invoice entirely. If nobody does, pay the tier and stop thinking about it.

The cluster of villages just next door

The useful thing about this corner of Suffolk County is how tightly packed the neighbouring places are. Port Jefferson Station is 1.7 miles away. East Setauket and Setauket are both 2.4 miles. Mount Sinai is 2.6 miles and Terryville is 2.7 miles. Five neighbours, all inside a 2.7 mile radius, all covered by us.

That matters more than it sounds. Event committees out here are rarely drawn from one ZIP code. You will have people from 11777 and people from a mile or two up the road, and the badges have to serve all of them. Because the flat shipping tier is calculated on the total number of buttons on a single order and not on how many people the badges are eventually handed to, one combined order is almost always cheaper than several smaller ones split by who lives where. Pool the counts, place one order, split the boxes afterwards.

Five sizes, and what a hundred of one does

We make round pin-back buttons in five sizes 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. The 1 inch is $1.49 and the 1.25 inch $1.69, so the small end of the range is where a long run costs least per button.

Up to 99 of one size there is no discount, and from 100 of it there is. They are the same for one button as for one thousand. Adding buttons nobody needs is still waste, except in the few counts just below a break, where the larger order is genuinely cheaper. What changes with quantity is the shipping tier and nothing else.

For staff and volunteer badges the 2.25 inch is the usual working size. It holds a name at a size a person can read across a table without leaning in, and it still leaves room for a role word underneath and your logo above. The 1.5 inch suits a badge that only carries a colour and a single word. The 3 inch is a different job, more sign than badge, which some organisers use for the handful of people who need to be identifiable from across a room.

A worked example, all in

Say you are badging a large event and you need 501 of the 2.25 inch. At $1.39 each, the 500 to 999 band rate, that is $696.39 in buttons. The flat shipping for an order of that size is $24.99. The order comes to $721.38 before tax.

Nothing in that arithmetic is hiding a discount. The 501st button costs exactly what the first one cost. The published bands are 1 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499 and 500 to 999, per size.

The one thing worth checking before you submit

Look at where your count sits against the tier boundaries. In the example above, ordering 500 instead of 501 keeps the order inside the $19.99 tier and saves $5.00 on postage. One button fewer, five dollars back.

The tiers, by total buttons on the order:

• up to 100 $9.99
• up to 250 $14.99
• up to 500 $19.99
• up to 1000 $24.99

A flat tier has edges, and a count that lands one or two over an edge pays for the whole next tier. Before you place the order, check whether trimming a badge drops you back under the line, or whether you would rather keep the spares and pay the higher tier. Both are reasonable. The point is to know which you chose.

Four people who tend to place these orders

If you are the volunteer coordinator, your problem is that the headcount is still moving. Order to the number you can defend, not the number you hope for, and check that number against the nearest tier edge before you submit.

If you are handling check in at the door, you want the role readable at arm's length by somebody who has never met the volunteer. That is an argument for the 2.25 inch and for putting the role word in a larger weight than the name.

If your event runs across more than one day with different crews, you are probably distinguishing groups by colour rather than by text. Splitting a run across separate orders splits the count that earns the discount, which is the new reason to keep it together.

If you are ordering on behalf of a committee that will reimburse you, the figure you need is the one at the bottom of the worked example above: buttons plus one flat postage line, before tax. There is nothing else to add to it.

Common questions

Can I collect a Port Jefferson order in person instead of paying for shipping? Yes. Collection carries no shipping charge, so the entire postage tier comes off the total. Whether that is worth the trip is the calculation covered above.

I am ordering staff badges for an event in Port Jefferson. Does the price per button drop if I move from 250 up to 500? Yes, as long as the count is for one size. 250 of one size pays 25 percent under the listed rate and 500 of it pays 30 percent under the listed rate. Combine designs at one size and the combined count is what sets the rate. Moving from 250 to 500 changes the shipping tier from $14.99 to $19.99 and changes nothing else.

My Port Jefferson event needs 501 badges. Is there a reason to order 500? Yes, a small one. 500 stays in the $19.99 tier and 501 moves you into the $24.99 tier, so dropping a single badge saves $5.00. If you want the spare, keep it and pay the higher tier.

Our committee is drawn from Port Jefferson and the villages next to it. Should that be one order or several? One. The shipping tier is set by the total button count on the order, so combining the counts into a single order costs less postage than splitting it by who lives where. Divide the boxes up afterwards.

Which of the five sizes works for a name badge at a Port Jefferson event? The 2.25 inch is the practical middle. It carries a name plus a role word and a small logo without crowding. Go to 1.5 inch only if the badge is a colour and a single word, and to 3 inch if you need a few people picked out from a distance.