Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Remsenburg-Speonk, New York

Most of the people ordering campaign buttons are volunteers rather than professionals: someone who has been handed a walk list, a box of literature and the job of making a candidate's name recognisable on streets where it is not yet familiar. The button is the part of that kit that does not need explaining. It goes on a jacket, it is visible from a porch before anyone says hello, and it can be handed to a neighbour who wants to signal something without taking a lawn sign. That is the order this page is written for: a modest run of round pin-back buttons, full colour, printed from artwork the volunteer or the campaign's designer uploads.

Nothing about that order is complicated. The two things worth getting right before you place it are the address line and the quantity, and both have a wrinkle here that is worth a paragraph each.

The address line carries more weight here than usual

Remsenburg-Speonk has no ZIP code of its own on file with us. That is not a problem, but it does change where your attention should go on the checkout form. Orders are routed by the street address you type, not by a postal code lookup, so the street number, the street name and any unit or box designation are doing the work. Write them the way they appear on your mail. If a volunteer is receiving the box at a house that is not their own, use the name that is actually on that mailbox rather than the campaign's name, because the delivery is matched to the address and the person at it.

This matters more for a campaign than for most orders, because campaign shipments often go to whoever has a garage rather than to a candidate's own house. Sort out which address you are using before you start the order rather than after.

We also cover the places immediately around you, which is useful when a committee is spread out. Westhampton is 1.8 miles away, East Moriches 2.8 miles, Center Moriches 4.8 miles, Manorville 5.1 miles and Moriches 6.2 miles. A size's own count picks its rate, not the order total.

Five sizes, and the count that sets the rate

There are five round pin-back buttons and nothing else:

• 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

Nothing about the rate changes until one size reaches 100. The gap between them is real: ten pays the listed rate while a thousand of one size needs a quote. No minimum applies. The bands start at one and the first discount arrives at 100 of a size. If you are used to ordering printed material where the unit cost drops as you scale, set that expectation aside. Your button subtotal is simply the size price multiplied by how many you want.

Two things respond to a bigger count: what each button of that size costs, and the single postage line.

A worked order, so you can see the shape of it

Take 100 of the 3 inch button, which is the size most canvassing committees choose because a candidate's name has to be readable across a front walk.

• 100 buttons at $1.99 each, the band rate once 100 of one size are on the order, $199.00
• Flat shipping for that size order $9.99
• Order total before tax $208.99

That is the whole calculation. There is no setup line, no plate charge and no separate art fee hiding underneath it.

Where the shipping tiers fall, and why 100 is a convenient number

Shipping is flat, priced 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

Notice that 100 sits exactly on a boundary. An order of 100 buttons pays $9.99. An order of 101 pays $14.99, and so does an order of 250. If your committee has been going back and forth between 100 and 110, that is worth five minutes of discussion, because the extra ten buttons cost you the ten button prices plus a five dollar step in shipping. Going the other way, if you have already decided on 120 and someone suggests 200, you are in the same shipping tier either way, so the shipping side of the decision is settled.

The discount is a separate thing from the shipping step, and it arrives at 100, 250 and 500 of a single size. The per button price is 20 percent under the listed rate at 100 and 25 percent under it at 250, because 250 starts a new band. The shipping step moves at 100 and the rate band moves there too, which is the one place the two ladders agree.

Artwork that reads from the far side of a front walk

Buttons are printed full colour from the file you upload, and the design decision that matters most for canvassing is how much you put on a circle that is at most 3 inches across. The candidate's name or the ballot question should be the largest element by a clear margin. A slogan underneath it competes with the name for attention, and at 1.5 inches it usually loses. High contrast between the text and the background does more for legibility at a distance than any amount of detail. Remember that the outer edge of the printed area curves over the rim of the button, so keep anything you need read well inside the circle rather than against its edge.

If you have one design and two audiences, it is common to run the same artwork at two sizes: the large one for the people walking the route and a smaller one for supporters to wear.

Coming from the shop out to the east end

Remsenburg-Speonk sits 36.3 miles east of the shop in a straight line, due east, in the town of Southampton within Suffolk County. That is a distance, not a drive, and it changes nothing about your pricing: the per button figures above and the flat shipping tiers are the same whether an order is going a mile or the full 36.3.

Four kinds of order we see

The volunteer coordinator. You are buying for a group rather than for yourself, which means you should count bodies before you count buttons. Order to the number of people who will actually wear one, add a small margin for the ones who get lost, and make sure one named person owns the delivery address.

The candidate running for a local seat. You want your name on the button and very little else. Resist the instinct to add the office, the party and a slogan. A name in large type does more work on a doorstep than a full ticket in small type.

The ballot question committee. Your design has to carry an argument rather than a name, which is the hardest version of this problem. Pick the three words that carry it and let everything else go. If you need a longer explanation, it belongs on the literature, not on the button.

The neighbour organising a petition. You may only need a handful, and that is fine. The price per button is the same for you as for the largest campaign on the ballot, so a small run is not penalised.

Questions people ask before ordering

Our checkout form wants a ZIP and Remsenburg-Speonk does not seem to have one on your system. What do we enter? Fill in the street address completely and accurately, since that is what the order is routed by. Use the address exactly as it appears on the mail delivered to that house.

Our Remsenburg-Speonk committee is debating 100 buttons against 120. What actually changes? 20 percent comes off at 100 of one size, 25 percent at 250 and 30 percent at 500. Your button subtotal rises by the price of the twenty extra buttons, and the flat shipping moves from the $9.99 tier up to the $14.99 tier, because 120 is past the 100 button line.

Which size should a Remsenburg-Speonk canvasser be wearing at the door? The 3 inch at $2.49 is the usual choice for the person knocking, because a name on it is readable from the length of a front walk. The 1.5 inch at $1.89 suits supporters who want something on a lapel rather than something that announces itself.

Can a Remsenburg-Speonk order be collected instead of shipped? Yes. Local pickup is free, and an order collected in person does not carry a shipping tier at all, so the total is just the buttons.

Several of our volunteers have Westhampton addresses. Can one Remsenburg-Speonk order cover all of them? An order ships to the single address entered at checkout, so splitting the delivery means placing separate orders. Each order carries its own flat shipping tier based on its own button count, which is usually the argument for sending the whole run to one house and distributing from there.