Hit Promotional Products, relatively speaking, is new to apparel. A giant in the hard-goods space, the Largo, Florida-based supplier topped $397 million in 2017 revenue, but began offering apparel only three years ago. As it looked to scale its soft-goods business, it knew it needed a pro…
Read MoreAuthor: Sean Norris
Vistaprint CEO to Step Down After ‘Disappointing’ Second Quarter for Cimpress
Cimpress released its second-quarter earnings report yesterday, and it’s a doozy. In a surprising move, the company will part with Vistaprint CEO Trynka Shineman after Vistaprint posted revenue growth of just 1 percent, while overall Cimpress revenue grew 8 percent, down from 32 percent in the second quarter of 2018. Robert Keane, Cimpress CEO, will serve as interim CEO for Vistaprint while the company looks for a replacement…
Read More‘Cheap Swag’: How the Promo Industry Is Fighting a Decades-Old Perception Problem That Just Won’t Quit
The promo industry has come a long way from the days of cheap giveaways, the proverbial “trinkets and trash.” The best companies have put the focus on value, quality and responsible sourcing, helping the industry to a record-breaking $23.3 billion in 2017 revenue. So why can’t it shake the nagging perception that it sells mostly cheap swag—and why does it matter?…
Read More4 Customer Engagement Strategies That Add Value
It was 2010, and Delta Marketing Group was at a crossroads. As the recession bottomed out, the company lost its top three clients. To survive, it would have to reinvent itself as more than just a promotional products seller. For Cathy Houston, vice president for Delta Marketing Group, that meant one thing…
Read MoreHow to Compete With Big Online Promo Distributors: Don’t
How’s a small or independent distributor supposed to compete with Amazon and the mega online promo distributors? It’s a question we hear a lot, especially as those large distributors grab more and more of the market share. But there might be a simple answer: Don’t even try…
Read MoreU.S. Reaches Temporary Trade Agreement With China, Won’t Increase Tariffs to 25%—Yet
At the G-20 summit in Argentina, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached an agreement that will put a temporary hold on U.S. plans to increase tariffs on Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent. The two countries will have 90 days from Jan. 1, 2019, to negotiate a long-term agreement…
Read MoreOK, These Adidas World Series Merch Vending Machines Were Freakin’ Awesome
The World Series is over, with the Boston Red Sox cruising to a 4-1 series win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. But, honestly, who cares, because we need to talk about the digital vending machines Adidas used to dispense piles of branded World Series merchandise and promote a new line of shoes…
Read MoreThe Best Comments From This Wall Street Journal Op-Ed on MLB’s ‘Ugly Sweatshirt Crisis’
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed taking a (presumably) tongue-in-cheek shot at Major League Baseball’s playoff hoodies. These are the ones—adorned with each team’s postseason slogan and logo and various MLB branding—that players wear in the dugout, because October baseball is a frigid, hellish nightmare that serves only to remind us…
Read More2018 Top 50 Promotional Products Suppliers: Stats, Trends and Analysis
If things were looking good for distributors in 2017, they were even better for promotional products suppliers. While our Top 50 distributors totaled just over $5 billion in promotional products sales last year, the 2018 Top 50 Suppliers totaled $5.3 billion, besting their $4.6 billion 2016 total by a full $690 million (a 14.9 percent increase)…
Read MoreThe 2018 Top 50 Promotional Products Suppliers
Each year, Promo Marketing sets out to compile and rank the largest promotional products suppliers. The 2018 Top 50 Suppliers list is the result—a comprehensive ranking of the industry’s power players by 2017 sales volume, with additional in-depth analysis on mergers and acquisitions, geographic trends, sales statistics and more. It was a big year in…
Read More