Hi everyone!

I have a bit of a production dilemma, and after going back and forth about it for the last several days, I decided the best thing to do was explain the situation and ask all of you what you would prefer.

First, the good news: I currently have every Admit One pin design in hand, and they look great! The factory did a fantastic job producing these pins, including the UV-printed details, which were one of my biggest concerns with this collection.

However, I don't yet have the full quantities needed to fulfill the campaign.

I’m still waiting on a few stickers from the printer, but aside from that, I have almost everything I need to begin shipping some orders.

When I originally placed the production order, surveys hadn't gone out yet, so I didn't know the final quantity needed for each design. I ordered approximately 50–100 of each design and personally fronted the cost to begin production early.

There were two reasons I did this:

The first batch arrived in August, and thankfully, the Admit One pins themselves turned out beautifully. I'm very happy with them.

Once surveys were completed and I had everyone's final selections, I was able to calculate the actual quantities needed. For roughly half of the designs, I now need to place an additional production order. And that's where I've run into a dilemma.

I've worked with this particular factory for several years, and historically I've had a very good relationship with them. Most of what they've produced for me has been great. Occasionally there might be an issue with one design, as can happen with manufacturing, and they would remake it.

Unfortunately, I recently had a very different experience with another order.

Several months ago, the factory produced a large batch of pins for me that had widespread plating defects throughout the entire order. To give you an idea of the scale, the order contained 3,955 pins, so this represented a significant quantity of merchandise. The quality was substantially below the standard I normally receive from them, so I documented and photographed the issues and asked for the order to be remade.

They agreed and produced a replacement batch, which arrived at the very end of July.

The replacement batch was better, but unfortunately it still had widespread quality issues, including uneven enamel, tarnishing, fingerprints in the plating, missing plating, and other defects.

Thankfully, I was able to grade enough usable pins from the replacement batch to fulfill the customer orders associated with that collection. However, a large portion of the remaining inventory that was intended for my website and future markets can now only be sold as B or C grade merchandise.

I photographed and documented the defects and sent everything to the factory. They asked what I wanted as compensation, and I requested a partial refund for the portion of the merchandise that wasn't produced to the quality standard we had agreed upon.

I specifically did not want them to make the order a third time. At that point, I already had thousands of defective pins taking up space, and producing even more merchandise that might have the same problems didn't feel like a reasonable solution.

Their position is essentially that they already absorbed the cost of producing the order twice and that they also lost money to PayPal processing fees. My position is that I paid for merchandise produced to an agreed-upon quality standard, and producing the order twice doesn't really resolve the problem if both batches contain widespread defects. I also don't understand why they believe they shouldn't be responsible for the PayPal seller fees, since their own terms and conditions state that sellers are responsible for those fees. Those fees are part of the cost of doing business through PayPal, and they were something the factory agreed to when they accepted payment through the platform. I don't believe those fees should be used as a reason to deny compensation for merchandise that was not produced to the agreed-upon quality standard.

What's further strange is that I didn't even ask for a full refund. I only requested a partial refund, so I'm not sure what the seller fees even have to do with anything.

Normally, I would simply place the remaining Admit One order with the same factory.

And to be completely clear: the Admit One pins they already produced are NOT defective. They look great, and I am very happy with the quality of this particular collection.

There have also been some recent issues with their production timelines. An order I was originally told would take approximately 20 days ultimately took about two and a half months. When I recently asked for an updated production estimate before placing another order, I was told that they had just received a $600,000 order and were extremely busy, but I wasn't given an actual estimated production timeline.

I can essentially eat the financial loss from the defective merchandise from the other collection and place the remaining Admit One quantities with the factory that produced the first batch.

The biggest advantage is consistency.

They already have the molds, enamel colors, pearl effects, measurements, and production specifications for these designs. Since the first Admit One batch looks great, the additional pins should theoretically match the pins I already have.

The downside is that I would be continuing to give business to a factory I'm currently having a significant unresolved issue with, and I don't have a concrete production timeline from them.

The other option is to take the designs to another factory.

This would mean paying for new molds and essentially starting production over for the remaining quantities, but it would allow me to begin transitioning away from the current manufacturer.

The concern is consistency between the two batches.

Enamel pins aren't manufactured from standardized files in quite the same way something digitally printed might be. Different factories create their own molds, mix their own enamel colors, and may use slightly different materials or production processes.

That means the second batch could look slightly different from the Admit One pins I already have.

For example, two ticket pins that are intended to be the same dimensions could potentially have a small size difference if they're produced by two different factories. Colors could vary slightly. The pearl effect used on some designs might look a little different. I may also need to adjust a few colors during proofing to get the new batch as close as possible to my original artwork and the first production batch.

If your order contains two pins that are supposed to coordinate or be the same size, it's therefore possible you could receive pins with slight differences between them.

They would still be the same designs and I would still quality-check the new production, but I can't guarantee that pins manufactured by two completely different factories will be visually identical.

I've been going back and forth about this for several days because there isn't an obvious perfect answer.

On one hand, I really value consistency, and I know the current factory is capable of producing these particular designs beautifully because I already have the first batch sitting in front of me.

On the other hand, I'm extremely disappointed with how they've handled the defective order and I'm not sure I feel comfortable continuing to give them my business, particularly without a reliable production timeline.

Since these are ultimately your rewards, I thought it made sense to ask what matters more to you.

I'll leave the poll open for a few days and take your feedback into consideration before I make the final production decision.

I know this is probably much more behind-the-scenes manufacturing information than most people ever hear about enamel pins, but I wanted to be transparent about what's happening rather than quietly make the decision for everyone and potentially have people wondering why two pins look slightly different.