We’ve watched BAMKO closely over the last year, as the distributor has been one of the promo industry’s biggest success stories during the pandemic. Now, the company’s full-year and Q4 results are in, giving us a complete picture of BAMKO’s sales and providing some valuable insights for the rest of the industry…
Read MoreIn January, Amazon quietly purchased Selz, a small Australian startup that, like Shopify, allows businesses to easily set up online stores. What exactly the company plans to do with Selz is still unclear, but we have some guesses—an obvious one, and a speculative one with branded merchandise implications…
Read MoreThe COVID-19 crisis presents marketers with a unique environment to market their organizations. The unique challenges require creative solutions. Promotional products can play a significant role in several ways. By studying and understanding current trends, marketers have the chance to be creative enough to increase their organization’s presence…
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Apparel has been battered since the start of the pandemic, with various sources reporting that overall apparel shipments have fallen dramatically compared to 2019. But there are some signs of life. Apparel was the third best performing promotional products category for the June-July period…
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Our Top 50 Distributors totaled $6.18 billion in 2019 promotional products sales. That’s up from last year’s Top 50, which totaled $5.96 billion in 2018 sales. Overall, 44 of this year’s Top 50 distributors (88 percent) grew sales over the prior year. Elsewhere on the list, some other significant jumps took place…
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Businesses from coffee shops to bars to high-end restaurants may need to adjust their operating models as the country begins to reopen. With sanitary concerns and an increased demand for to-go orders, there is a critical role distributors can play as food and drink companies navigate the new normal…
Read MoreThe promotional products space plays an important role in creating a powerful brand experience. For distributors and suppliers, it’s offering products that carry perceived value to be used by companies for corporate gifting or rewards programs, or at special events. Here are the four main building blocks of creating an exceptional brand experience…
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Not even a high-touch and highly creative industry like promotional products is immune to the “Amazon Effect.” That may have many distributors rushing towards an e-commerce model to meet buyer expectations—but before you completely throw out the traditional relationship-based model, let’s discuss…
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The PPAI Expo show floor is so big that you can’t really see it all in one day. At least, you wouldn’t be able to give everything its due attention. So, for the second day of the show, we explored some corners of the show floor we couldn’t venture to yesterday..
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The exhibit hall at PPAI Expo 2020 opened this morning, and there was a lot to see and do. We’re going to try our best to cover as many of the new products, trends and stories from PPAI Expo 2020 as we can. Here’s the cool stuff we found on day one of exhibits…
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