Zap doesn't sandwich their double-sided clear acrylic (at least from my experience), they use a single slab with one coated print.
I've used them a few times in the past, the quality of their acrylic and print is pretty good and they always throw in a few extras in case you get a defect. There's also an option to have them bagged and have the chain attached beforehand (tho it costs extra). I always until they have a sale, I've seen them up to 30% off in the past.
Recently I used Decal Monkey for my vinyl die cut stickers. https://decalmonkey.biz/227 Their rates were a little higher $60 for about 50 3x3in stickers, but they were able to do a rush order for me (I picked them up 2 days after ordering them) without charging me extra. Helped me out a lot when I was in a pinch before comic con. Also, you can have them print as many designs as you want as long as you order a min of $60 total. So it was nice to get 10 designs, with varying amounts of each.
I use http://Readycomics.com432 for printing my comics and prints. For the quality and flexibility they are the best (and perhaps least expensive) printers I've found for printing my books. Their turn around is super fast too since they are also a printer for Diamond Distributors. They also offer sketchcards, business cards, metal bookmarks, buttons, and a whole slather of other things. They also deliver directly to shows with no extra shipping cost. Right to your table sometimes! So I can only say good things about them.
I use https://www.wackybuttons.com/387 for my buttons. They are fast and cheap and save your design forever if you ever want to reorder.
Bookmarking this thread...
While it's active, I'll toss in a question myself. Does anyone know a good place to get dakimakura/body pillow covers printed? I've googled it but the results are usually way too expensive to turn a profit without turning away customers.
Aside from these sites I found a while ago (first294, second176, third149) I don't think I know of any third party site that can do it at a cost-effective price. Unless you find a manufacturer directly, my idea was to simply sell the design and high resolution file to people and then direct them to one of the above sites for them to upload and purchase a pillow on their dime. (ofc I would include a disclaimer/ToS message when selling the design though, that upon purchase the customer only has so many uses of the image/can only make x amount of pillows from it, kind of like font websites)
Well that is annoying. You mean the link to the PDF, right? I just downloaded it and put it in my drive. Here it is. "So, you need an enamel pin supplier."192
Thanks for clearing that up! I must've gotten them confused with another supplier. Maybe Vograce.
I've heard of Artscow283 (they also do several other kinds of merchandise), but they can get kind of pricey too... I think it's one of those places that people mostly use with coupons or go in together with other people for a group order.
Otherwise, you can try to find a Chinese manufacturer on Alibaba. It's like a... marketplace for manus, like Amazon or Etsy but for business services.
But if you want to make and sell dakis, make sure you're not undercharging yourself. I don't know what the market is like there, but here just the pillow case goes for $50-$70 a pop, easy. And you don't want to deal with providing the pillows, as that adds a lot to the shipping cost and takes up storage space.
Generally a good rule of thumb is to calculate your prices like so:
[Production cost] x 2 = [Wholesale cost] = What you would sell them for to a store so you both make profit.
[Wholesale cost] x 2 = [Retail cost] = What the customer is paying.
I got my GS-JJ pins in! And I have to say I'm quite satisfied with their quality.
Out of an order of 100 pins, 64 I would grade an A+ to A quality. 25 B quality: defects only visible upon very close inspections (small very slight scratches on the metal, small black spots of resin on the white), and 12 C quality: more noticeable defects upon close inspection (over/underfilled areas of resin, slight defects of the metal when taken out of mold). Even with the defects on the C grades I would still wear the pin if at a discounted price.
The pin posts themselves are quite sharp and the rubber clutches have a really tight grip on them.
The glitter is really nice, the resin is mixed with it so it's a little harder to see in the black enamel, but I've checked all the pins and they each have noticeable amounts of glitter. So if you do a glitter enamel in a different color I'm sure it will stand out even more. This is opposed to some other pins I have in my collection from other companies where it looks like they just tossed the glitter on top of a bed of resin.
(like wth is with that distribution and glitter to enamel ratio?)
The process with ordering from GS-JJ was pretty straightforward. From the moment you approve the pin proof, it's just about 40 days until you get the shipment, give or take a few days depending on shipping/holidays/etc. I approved my pins May 8th and got them June 19th. I chose the slowest production and shipping timetable for a discount. If you need pins faster, there are options for that at a price.
The pins arrived in a box like so via Fedex from GS-JJ's manufacturer in China.
All in all, I'd use GS-JJ again. They are by far the cheapest pin producer I've found (if you're not finding manufacturers directly yourself) and their quality is very good.
hi! I know that it's been a while since this topic was active, but I wanted to ask if there were any recommendations for where to print/purchase packaging for pins, like plastic wrapping or the backing cards?
Backing cards I order them as business cards from VistaPrint. They're fairly inexpensive for decent quality.
Packaging: You can find the cellophane baggies on sites like Amazon once you have your backing card dimensions set.
You can get packaging materials pretty affordable from ClearBags.com242 and they now offer (a limited) set of items that are eco-friendly. They also offer food-safe packaging.
Oh wow. This is an incredible topic, thank you everyone who shared websites and shared their opinion on them! I'm bookmarking this and will definitely look into these sites. Everyone is so helpful and kind here it's amazing! Thank you! 
As an additional update, I'm also getting pins from The Enamel Pin Factory249, they're a sister site of Zap Creatives. They have good quality! They're a bit pricier than GS-JJ above, but they do often have sales and promotions.
Actually I've started a Google Sheet compiling pin producers I've used or own product produced by. Check it out here143 for more in-depth details!
if you are looking for acrylic keychains or acrylic charms supplier, i would like to recommend Vograce. There are some reviews and unboxing video on Youtube. https://vograce.com/blogs/news/why-choose-acrylic-charms-acrylic-keychains-custom-made-from-vograce85
I use Zap Creatives for charms and stuff and because I'm kinda poor I use print on demand sites like Redbubble for stickers, posters, shirts, etc.
Besides stickermule and zap creatives, i would like to recommend vograce charm. Their acrylic charms, acrylic keychains, stickers are so good. Although sometimes there are glues on the edges, mostly I love the quality.
not my doc but i remember someone sharing it on twitter or something and it's all categorized by merch type and has some notes on quality or wait times
the op's @ is in the doc
In the past I used Society6, Redbubble, Teespring and Spreadshirt.
Now I'm planning on making my own shirts.
I ordered some blank t-shirts from Amazon and some transfer paper (be careful: there's two different types of paper, one for light colored clothes and one for dark colored ones).
I know about artists printing on Bella Canvas shirts but I prefer Nuqlo. It's cheaper and have way better quality! They delievered the shirts in a colorful box that I am definetly going to keep and included a discount coupon inside for my next purchase 
My mom owns a sewing machine and I am definetly going to try it and see if I can make some cool designs with it!
Another thing I want to try:
I will surely use Blurb to print my comic in the future. In the meantime, I am planning on printing a notebook similar to the one that my characters uses and I want to fill it with drawings and notes from them according to what happens in the comic 
This way, whoever gets the notebook can use it for its original purpose AND to learn more about the lore and what's happening in the comic!
Moral of the story: think outside the box!
For those who wonder, Blurb is a service that allows you to print and sell on demand your book/comic/notebook/magazine/whatever online!
You can also download their free program, BookWright, that will help you "assemble" your creation.
However, I'll probably use Affinity Publisher instead BW to make it.
Publisher isn't free, but relatively cheap AND I got a 90 days trial when I created my account!
Try printify.com, I had the experience working with them. A good sword allows the brand to get additional income, a new target audience, and increase the loyalty of the team and customers. The tool, on the one hand, is simple, on the other hand, it raises many questions about the expediency and methods of use. I managed to earn a lot of money by creating my own merch. One of my features was the use of water soluble packaging23. Even if the buyer throws out the package in the wrong place when receiving it, it will not harm the environment.
closed Aug 12, '22
