Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Staten Island

Which address should we actually put on the order when the ZIP code field does not seem to line up? Put the full street address, and treat that as the part doing the work. We have no ZIP on file for this part of Richmond County, so the street line is what the order is keyed to. Nothing else about ordering changes. You pick a size, you pick a quantity, you upload the artwork, and you type the street address the box should go to.

Ordering when the ZIP field is not the useful part

Plenty of ordering forms treat a postal code as the anchor and the street line as a detail. Here it works the other way around. Write the street number, the street name, and the apartment or unit if there is one. If the buttons are going to a practice space or a shared studio, put a name on the line too.

This matters more than it sounds for anyone in Staten Island splitting a merch order between a home address and wherever the band actually stores gear. Two different street lines are two different orders, and each one carries its own shipping charge, so it is usually simpler to send the whole run to one door and divide it by hand later.

What a hundred buttons of band merch costs

Crossing 100 of a size takes 20 percent off every one of them, not just the hundredth.

• 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

That is the whole price list. There is no break at 100, no break at 500, no break at 1000. The number next to the size is what you pay for the first button and what you pay for the four hundredth. Most merch quotes a band gets are built the other way, with a price that slides as the count climbs. Here the count changes nothing, so order the number you actually think you can move.

A worked example. Say 75 of the 2.25 inch button, which is the size most people land on for merch. At $1.99 each that is $149.25 in buttons. Flat shipping for an order of that size is $9.99. The order comes to $159.24 before tax.

The shipping tiers, and the one number to watch

Shipping is flat and it is decided by the total number of buttons on the order, not by weight and not by size.

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

The 75 button order above sits under the first ceiling with 25 buttons of headroom. That headroom is the only real reason to round a quantity up or down. Adding 25 more buttons to that order costs you the buttons and nothing more in shipping. Adding 26 more pushes the order into the $14.99 tier, so a single extra button moves the shipping charge up a step. The same logic sits at 250 and at 500.

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 identical on either side of every one of those lines. The tier is a separate charge, and knowing where it steps is only a way to avoid paying a higher one for a couple of buttons you did not need.

Choosing between 1.5, 2.25 and 3 inch

The 2.25 inch button is the default for a reason. It is big enough to carry a logo and a word or two of text and small enough that someone will put it on a jacket without thinking about it. If your artwork is essentially a logo mark with no type, the 1.5 inch reads cleanly at $1.89. If the design has a band name, a record title and a date stacked on top of each other, the 3 inch gives that text somewhere to live.

Mixing sizes on one order is fine and the tier counts them together. Forty of the 1.5 inch and forty of the 2.25 inch is eighty buttons, which is still the $9.99 tier.

Setting up artwork for a circle

Buttons are printed full colour from the file you upload, and the print wraps around the curved edge before it is folded under the back. The outer ring of your design therefore disappears from the flat face. Build the art on a square canvas, keep the important part of it inside a circle well in from the edge, and let the background colour or texture run all the way out past that circle. Type sitting close to the edge is the most common thing that gets clipped.

Solid backgrounds, heavy line work and high contrast all read well at this scale. Fine grey type at six point does not, at any of the five sizes.

How far the order travels

Staten Island is 44.5 miles south west of the shop in a straight line. Brooklyn, 11.5 miles away, is also covered, so if a band member keeps gear on that side, the box can go to whichever street address is easiest for someone to be standing at. The distance has no effect on the per button price or on the shipping tier. Both are flat everywhere they apply.

Who tends to order a run like this

For a band putting out a first release, buttons are usually the smallest purchase on the merch table and the one people still make after spending their cash on a record. A run of 75 to 100 in one design is a normal starting point, and 100 is the one worth reaching, because at a hundred of a size every button comes down 20 percent.

For whoever ends up running the table, a single design in a single size is much easier to sell than four designs in five sizes. One price, one box, no counting. If you want variety, vary the artwork and keep the size fixed.

For a bill with three or four acts splitting an order, the tier is the thing worth agreeing on before anyone pays. Four bands at 60 buttons each is 240 buttons, inside the $14.99 tier, and placing it as ONE order matters: 240 of a size earns 20 percent off, while four orders of 60 earn nothing. The difference is the shipping charge, paid once instead of four times.

For someone ordering on behalf of a friend's band, get the artwork from them as the largest file they have rather than a screenshot from a social post. That one step prevents most of the problems.

Questions people ask

Our band is in Staten Island and the ZIP field does not match. Will the order still find us? Yes. The street address is what the order is routed on. Give the full street line with a unit number and a name, and the postal code question takes care of itself.

Does the per button price drop if a Staten Island order is 500 buttons instead of 75? It does now. 75 of the 2.25 inch is $1.99 each and 500 of it is $1.39 each, because 500 reaches the 500 to 999 band. $1.49, $1.69, $1.89, $1.99 and $2.49 are the prices across the whole 1 to 99 band. Five hundred of the 2.25 inch is five hundred times $1.39. The only thing that changed is which flat shipping tier the order sits in.

We want two sizes on one Staten Island order. How is the shipping charge worked out? By the total count across the whole order. Sizes are added together, so 120 buttons of any mix sits in the $14.99 tier.

We play in Brooklyn more often than we do in Staten Island. Can the box go to a different street address than the one we usually use? Yes. Ship to whatever street address suits, and it does not need to be the billing one. Each separate address is a separate order with its own shipping charge.

Is the 3 inch worth the extra cost for a Staten Island band selling at shows? It depends entirely on the artwork. If the design is a logo, no. If it is a logo plus a band name plus a release title, the 3 inch is the size where all three stay readable, and $2.49 is what each one costs, which is what 1 to 99 of a size costs.