Button/Pin Badges
Many people collect badges as a hobby, and many companies and clubs use them as a way of advertising, or denoting membership, or both.
You can buy a machine that makes badges (buttons) for a couple of hundred dollars including enough blanks to get you started.
If you are aiming to buy one or two machines you can do worse than to buy them on Ebay. There are stores set up there that offer badge machines, blanks and accessories at very reasonable prices. You could order from abroad but if you are not planning to set up a full factory then the cost of shipping is likely to use up any savings you might have made. There are also companies that will do badge manufacturing for you, if you are confident of adding a mark-up then this can save the cost and effort of creating the product yourself.
If you are creative then you may also want to offer a design service, and offer your clients a choice of prototypes to choose from. With the internet you can email your designs over until you are agreed on the basics of the design, and then make up some actual badges once you are down to the last 2 or 3 designs.
Badges themselves cost less than 10C each plus the design, labour, packing and delivery charges. You may want to think about the minimum order you are prepared to work on to cover the cost of running your business.
Once you have your machine you need to focus on finding buyers. We suggest the following approaches: -
Ebay
Website
Advertise
Trade fair organisers
Clubs, companies, schools, bands
Rock concerts, Sports games
TV, Political discussion points
Ebay has 1800 items listed today under a search for “button badges”, these include bags of mixed badges, and individual topic related, or funny badges. Some of the designs sell for several dollars. If you can some up with your own design you may be able to make a massive profit, so get creative and think bout the next social networking craze, following the popular items on MySpace and uTube could well be the key to a fortune.
Giving people the option to design and make their own badges could be a great way to run small job lots. www.buttonbadges.co.uk will run lots as small as 20 pieces for as little as £10; that’s almost US$1 a badge! The customer supplies the art work and postage is free within the UK but that is not going to cost much per badge. Looking at the sample badges it seems a large customer group must be bands, which is worth noting when you start targeting customers. More importantly having a website allows you to direct customers to it, where they can read about your service, pricing, and commonly asked questions.
Advertising may seem expensive compared to the cost of your product but some advertising is cost effective because it is where people will look when they want to buy, this includes online directories, Yellow Pages, and local newspapers. Other advertising is smart because you only need to place it once to get some orders, bearing in mind the apparent propensity for bands to want cheap buttons an advert, or even an article in the music press (think Q magazine, or NME) focussed on the ability for bands to earn income from selling their badges to fans could well get you a bunch of orders.
If you can get “in” with the people who organise trade fairs, put together invitations, arrange speakers at conferences etc. then you have a great opportunity. Ask that they include a leaflet or a mention for your service in all of the promotional materials, so that everyone who is speaking, or taking a stand has the opportunity to provide badges to visitors to the show or conference. Many companies do this already but they must find their own supplier, in a perfect world the organisers would simply include 100 badges in the cost of a stand and offer additional badges at a fixed cost per 100. You would of course pay a %age of the income to the organisers in return for this. Many of you are wondering how to find these organisers? Simply ask at the next trade show or conference that you attend, or better your walk down to your local exhibition centre on almost any Saturday and find out who is running the show by asking at information, or security.
Many organisations want badges for various events, if you can get hold of a list of clubs, companies, schools and/or bands then great, if not then start using local resources such as Yellow Pages to build your own list. Hand deliver, or mail a flyer to as many of these as possible, and do so more than once a year. If you want the bigger companies then consider making a badge with their logo on it and mailing it with a proposal. Also think about franchises such as Subway and McDonalds; if you made up “I’m lovin’ It” badges in Yellow and Red you may well get some takers.
Outside every stadium, before and after big games and other events such as concerts there are people selling unauthorised memorabilia including flags, T-shirts, mugs, and pin badges. This is very much a part time affair and yet can generate substantial profit with no delivery charges and no retail outlet costs you will make almost pure profit. You will need to stay on top of which events are happening when and come up with some suitable designs but providing you get this bit right the fans will come to you.
Remember the “Who Shot JR?” badges when Dallas was at its peak? When the nation is tuned into a cliff hanger, or there has been some huge political event, or simply at election time there are millions of people who want to be involved. Offering badges to individuals through gas stations, road side stands, or outside shopping malls is a great way to cash in on these kinds of events and who knows your badges may even become collectible.
You can buy everything you need to get started from Ebay. If you want to build a bigger outfit right from the start then have a look at www.alibaba.com but search under “badge parts” as opposed to “button parts” as the latter includes buttons for fastening clothes.
Note that if you are selling badges at $1 a go and in lots of 20 or so you won’t need to hire staff, or buy in huge quantity so don’t run off and buy from overseas. If you start doing big jobs for large companies and producing thousands of badges you will need more machines and cheaper stock.
Once people starting looking for your product they are more likely to compare prices, if you can persuade them they need it you may get the deal without any comparisons
Focus on sales before you start thinking about ramping up in size