It is not entirely clear what to fully attribute that discrepancy to beyond the possibility that many smaller distributors continued to struggle with pandemicrelated issues, or that they were no longer clients’ preferred partners once restrictions began to ease. Regardless, the report states bluntly that “the growth difference between segments tipped the industry’s balance in favor of large distributors,” which is counter to trends from as recently as 2018. For 2021, 57% of the market share was made up of companies with over $2.5 million in annual profit, which represents the largest percentage in the past decade. See Figure 3. An Online Boost It can’t be overlooked that the share of online sales of promotional products was 25.8% in 2021 (up from 17.3% in 2020). That larger share resulted in a massive increase in total volume of online sales. Once again, though, that increase wasmostly felt by larger companies, which saw a whopping 91.1% increase in online sales. Large companies did $4.2 billion in online sales in 2021 compared to just $2.2 billion in 2020. While small companies saw amuch smaller growth in online sales, they still mademore in online sales than they had in the previous five years. The total reported online sales fromall companies was $5.7 billion, which suggests it is picking up a trend that peaked in 2018 with $6 billion. See Figure 4. Business With Non-Industry Suppliers On The Decline Small distributors continued to do business with nonindustry suppliers at a rate on par with 2020, but large distributors only did 13% of business with suppliers outside the industry, down from 17% from 2020. The Internal Survey Report theorizes that this might have been a result of global supply chain issues that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic and which became an increasing obstacle as 2021 progressed. Many supply chain issues that began in 2021 have carried into 2022, and so it is possible that this trend may remain for our current year. The total number of sales in products from non-industry suppliers came out to $2.8 billion, which is 5.7% less than 2020. Read The Full Report For Yourself You can find more detailed results, including products, programs, and industry categories by percentage of annual sales, in the full report, available free to PPAI members and for purchase by companies not eligible for membership. Log in to access the full report at www.ppai. org/members/ research or email membership@ppai.org to join. FEATURE | 2021 U.S. Distributors’ Promotional Products Sales Survey Figure 4: Online Sales Contribution to Distributor Business, 2016-2021 $4.2 B $3.3 B $3.3 B $2.2 B $4.2 B $4.3 B $4.7 B $0.9 B $1.1 B $1.4 B $1.2 B $1.2 B $1.5 B $5.4 B $6.0 B $4.5 B $3.4 B $5.7 B +67.3% +91.1% +23.8% UNDER $2.5 MILLION OVER $2.5 MILLION 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Distributor Company Size Change Over 2020 Figure 3: Market Share By Distributor Size, 2010 - 2021 OVER $2.5 MILLION UNDER $2.5 MILLION 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 50% 50% 49% 54% 55% 50% 50% 51% 46% 58% 42% 56% 44% 56% 44% 52% 48% 57% 43% 45% 16 | JUNE 2022 |
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