I plan to start vending later this year and I love the idea of making buttons. Do you have any tips you know now that you would share with yourself when you didnt know anything about button making?
Of course! Grab yourself a drink, it's a bit long.
Two things to know first: You can either make them yourself or order them. This is a choice you have to make yourself and there isn't really a good or bad answer for weither you choose the first or second one. So far this is what I realized
Pros of ordering your badges:
•Good quality
•Template easy to understand for most websites
•You can choose different shapes (heart, star, cat, circle)
•You can order from every country mostly (which is useful if you're European like me and dont want to pay the huge fees of the us and would rather order locally if I can)
•More affordable than keychains in general
Cons of ordering your badges:
•You cannot see your designs errors until you received it
•You have to wait for production and shipping and it can take longer than you'd like (especially when a con is close)
•Even if it's more affordable than some merch, it's still a budget for a limited quantity
Now pros of making your own badge:
I have this machine:
(Yes it's pink💅, my dad bought it for me for Christmas so it was free!) It has different sizes of molds for different sizes of badges
•If you can have this machine (which is around 130 eur I think) it becomes cheaper to make badges in the end as the material comes with it and is pretty cheap to order
Let's say you pay 60 eur without shipping for 50 badges when you order buttons online, with this machine (which again was free for me) I ordered from the machine's website 500 pieces of material for 37 euros. Which allows me to create 500 buttons. You can calculate how worth it it is.
•You can make anything. You have a sudden idea for a design? You can test it out rn!
•You're late to a con and have less than expected? You can make more rn.
• You don't know how many badges to make? Just do them when someone order. For cons, you can take your machine with you and make them there, it's great advertisement and you can be sure you're not bringing too much/not enough merch.
Cons of making your own badges:
•A lot of trials and errors. You have to understand how the machine works and why it doesn't work sometimes. You also have to calculate the right sizing for the designs or it won't set properly when you make them. You'll have a lot of faulty buttons before doing the right ones.
•You need a good printer. This is very important as you'll have to print a lot of pages for your designs. And good quality paper is important as well. I wasted a lot of paper just trying to have good quality badges before realizing the paper was not good enough and thats why it didnt print properly. This is a budget as well. I have an Epson Ecotank personally.
●Advices:
•You need space. For cutting out the designs and for using your machine. Also for storing material and merch.
•You need a lot of patience AND time. You're doing everything by hand. It will take you hours
•My hand hurts from pressing many badges 🥲 don't forget to not do everything in one day and don't hesitate to ask for help
•Different machines exist. You might want to go for a cheaper one if you're not sure if you're going to use it, but go for a stronger, more expensive one if you want to use it very often and go years with it (there are plastic and iron ones)
Hope this helps!
