In a sales call this week, BAMKO, the distributor based in Los Angeles, announced that its fourth quarter 2021 net sales increased 41% and annual net sales increased 65% over the previous year. These figures don’t take PPE sales into account.
BAMKO reported that its promotional products net sales increased 6.8% to $215.8 million, which includes an increase of $77.4 million in core branded merchandise. The company’s sales for the fourth quarter of 2021 were $63 million.
“We couldn’t be happier with where we are or where BAMKO is going,” said Jake Himelstein, president of BAMKO. “We built on the tremendous sales success of 2020 and added an astounding $77.4 million in core branded merchandise business. As impressive as our 2020 growth was, I think 2021 is an even more impressive growth story because of the sustainability of the revenue we added this year. Unlike the PPE sales, adding over $77 million in new core business fundamentally changes what BAMKO is going forward.”
PPE obviously played a significant role for many promotional products companies in 2020 and 2021, but as mask mandates start to subside, companies can no longer rely on them as their primary earner. For BAMKO specifically, PPE was main catalyst that helped it double its 2019 sales totals in 2020, reaching $202.2 million, placing the company in the top 10 on our 2021 Top Distributors list.
As it shifts away from PPE, BAMKO has been making strategic acquisitions and forming partnerships to increase its product offerings and business capabilities.
“There are a number of things that we’ve done correctly the last couple years that are worth being proud of,” Himelstein said. “We were early to seeing the PPE opportunity and had the sales and operational excellence to capitalize on it. We then used the windfall from that success to reinvest in the business in a way that made us a better, more capable, and more competitive company. The result of that strategy was the exceptional growth in our core business in 2021. We intend to continue to invest in talent, technology, resources and capabilities in a way that will make us an extremely appealing option for customers and for talent that is looking for a place that is committed to investing in its own future.”
“As we begin to move past the difficult comparisons with the tremendous sales of these PPE products, we believe we are well positioned to continue to show significant growth going forward and continuing improvements in our operating results,” Michael Benstock, CEO of BAMKO’s parent company Superior Group of Companies, said in a press release.
The company also reported that its promotional products backlog ending 2021 was $74.3 million, $71.6 million of which was promotional products. This represents the largest backlog in BAMKO’s history, after a previous record of $45.5 million set at the end of 2020.
