Key Takeaways
• Hard goods are a strategic expansion for apparel decorators
• Functionality in popular promo items is becoming the new premium
• Decoration technology is opening new revenue opportunities
Apparel and headwear make up about 47% of the promotional products market. The other half of the industry consists of what have traditionally been known as hard goods — encompassing everything from drinkware to tech items to writing instruments to magnets.
For apparel decorators looking to diversify, branching out into hard goods is a smart move, whether it means pairing name-brand drinkware with an embroidered quarter-zip in a new hire kit or adding name badges and lanyards to an employee uniforming program. Or maybe diversifying into stickers and mugs to add onto the T-shirts you already screen print for your local coffee shop to sell to their loyal customers.
Consider that all five promo categories with the most growth from 2024 to 2025 were hard goods, according to ASI Research. And three of the four high-growth search terms in ASI’s flagship product sourcing platform ESP were “Owala,” “fans,” and “fidgets.”
Here are three trends to watch in the hard goods space.
Read this full article on Apparelist, a publication of PRINTING United Alliance, ASI’s strategic partner.
