Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Syosset, New York

## The five sizes and what each one costs

400 of the 3 inch button at $1.87 each, the 250 to 499 rate, 25 percent off, is $748.00 in buttons, flat shipping on an order that size is $19.99, and the order comes to $767.99 before tax. That is the whole calculation, written out, with nothing held back for a quote. What $767.99 buys is 400 full colour three inch pin-back buttons printed from artwork you upload, which for a club organiser in Syosset is usually enough to cover a full membership roll, the committee, a stack for the sign up table and a reserve box for the people who lose theirs. The reason we lead with the arithmetic rather than a form is that a club treasurer needs the number before the meeting, not after it.

There are five round buttons 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. Those are the prices at one button and they are the prices at a thousand buttons. The arithmetic is still one multiplication. You read the rate off the band your count lands in first. Two smaller diameters round out the range, the 1 inch at $1.49 and the 1.25 inch at $1.69.

This matters more than it sounds for a committee, because it removes the usual guessing game. Nobody has to argue about whether to inflate the count to reach a threshold. A hundred of a size earns 20 percent, and the saving applies to all hundred. If 180 members need pins, order 180. If 400 is the honest number, order 400. The sum behaves the same way, and the bands above 99 take 20, 25 or 30 percent off.

## How the flat shipping tiers work

Shipping is a flat charge banded by the total number of buttons on the order, not by size or weight. 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 worked example above sits at 400, which falls inside the $19.99 band with room to spare.

That room is worth noticing. An order of 260 buttons pays the same $19.99 as an order of 500, because both sit in the same band. If your count has landed just over a boundary, the shipping charge has already been paid for a much larger order, and the only thing standing between 260 and 500 is the per button rate you can look up on the extra buttons. That is not a discount and we are not going to pretend it is one. It is simply a fact about where the bands sit, and a club that was going to order a second batch anyway may prefer to put both batches on one order rather than pay a second shipping charge later. The tiers apply to orders that ship.

## The closest point in the county

Of everywhere we cover in Nassau County, this one is the nearest to the shop. Syosset sits 7.2 miles away in a straight line, south west, and no other place we serve in the county is closer. Straight line is what we measure, not roads and not minutes, so treat it as a map distance rather than a trip.

The neighbouring places we also cover cluster tightly around it. Muttontown is 2.5 miles off, Plainview 2.6, Jericho 2.9, West Hills 3.4 and Hicksville 3.4. If your membership is drawn from more than one of those, you are dealing with a small radius, and a single order collected or shipped to one organiser is usually simpler than five separate orders with five separate shipping charges.

## Artwork and full colour printing

Every button is printed in full colour from the artwork you supply. That means a crest with four spot colours, a photograph, a gradient behind a society name or a hand drawn logo scanned in all go through the same way. There is no colour count, no extra charge for a complicated design and no simplification step where somebody flattens your crest into two inks.

For clubs this usually means the existing badge artwork works as it stands. If your society has a seal that already appears on letterhead and banners, that file is the file. Put it on the 3 inch if the detail is fine, step down to the 2.25 inch if the design is bold, and keep the 1.5 inch for a simple mark or a year.

## Splitting one order across several designs

A single order can carry more than one design. A club running officer pins, member pins and a commemorative pin for an anniversary can put all three on one order, and the shipping tier is calculated on the total number of buttons rather than on the number of designs. Ninety officer pins, 260 member pins and 50 anniversary pins is 400 buttons, which is the $19.99 band, and the per button price for each design is simply the price for whichever size that design is printed at.

## Four situations we see

**The organiser with a fixed membership list.** You know the count exactly because you have the roll in front of you. Multiply, add the band, done. There is no advantage to rounding up and no penalty for the odd number.

**The treasurer working to an approved budget.** You need a figure you can put in the minutes and defend later. The published ladder gives you one, because nothing about the total changes between the day you quote it and the day you place it, unless the committee changes the size or the count.

**The society running an annual renewal.** Members who paid last year get this year's pin. The line item in your Syosset group's budget scales with headcount, with three steps in it: at 100, 250 and 500 of one size the rate on every button of that size comes down.

**The volunteer running a sign up table.** You want a box of the smaller button to hand out and a smaller run of the 3 inch for people who actually join. Two sizes, one order, one shipping band.

## Questions organisers actually ask

**My Syosset club needs 400 of the 3 inch button. What is the total?**

$748.00 for the buttons at $1.87 each, plus $19.99 flat shipping for an order in the 251 to 500 band, which is $767.99 before tax.

**If my Syosset society orders more than 400, does the price per button come down?** No. The figure listed is what 1 to 99 of that size costs each. At 40 the 3 inch is $2.49 each, at 400 it is $1.87 each, and a thousand of one size goes to a quote. Quantity now has two consequences, one on the rate for a size and one on the postage for the order.

**Our Syosset order is 260 buttons. Which shipping band is that?**

The $19.99 band, which covers everything above 250 and up to 500. At 250 it would have been $14.99, so 260 has just crossed a boundary.

**Can a Syosset customer pick the order up in person instead of having it shipped?** Yes, local pickup is free, and the flat shipping bands only apply to orders that are being shipped.

**How far is Syosset from the shop, and is anywhere in Nassau County nearer?**

7.2 miles in a straight line, to the south west. Nothing else we cover in Nassau County is closer to the shop than that.

## Placing the order

Choose the size, give us the count, upload the artwork and check the total against the bands above. Two steps instead of one: find the band for that size's count, then multiply. Nothing else is added on the way through, and there is no minimum you have to reach before the price behaves the way it is written here.