Key Takeaways
• Distributor sales in the promotional products industry declined for the second consecutive quarter in Q2 2025, down 3.2% year-over-year amid tariff uncertainty and economic hesitation.
• Tariff fluctuations, especially on Chinese and Canadian imports, created widespread concern and disrupted sales momentum, though the intensity of that concern eased slightly by the end of the quarter.
• Small and mid-sized distributors were hit hardest, as were sectors like education that have been most affected by budget cuts.
• Despite a dip in the Counselor Confidence Index, year-end projections improved slightly, with many distributors expecting delayed client projects to materialize in Q3 and Q4.
• Sales trends varied month-to-month, with April being the weakest due to peak tariff concerns, followed by a rebound in May and June as clients cautiously resumed spending.
2025 has been a tough one so far for the promo industry.
Distributor sales declined in Q2 for the second consecutive quarter, falling 3.2% compared to the same three-month period last year, according to the just-released Distributor Quarterly Sales Survey from ASI Research. It’s the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that promo has dealt with back-to-back quarterly sales drops, as the industry navigated a whirlwind of sweeping tariff announcements, rollbacks and overall marketplace uncertainty throughout the first half of 2025.
In part thanks to that volatility, ASI Research surveyed suppliers as well as distributors – the typical focus of the quarterly sales survey – for both the Q1 and Q2 iterations of this report. And things were challenging on the supplier side as well, with quarterly sales down a similar percentage year over year.
Read the full report on ASI Central.
