Must Read | The State of Growth 2023 David Lever Mark Gammon Supplier Benchmarking While promo’s strong rebound year of 2022 is well documented, it only takes stepping back for a little perspective to be impressed by just how much the industry has grown in terms of revenue over a three-year period that included a global pandemic. While the raw data shows that the largest and smallest suppliers grew at the fastest rates over that time, PPAI Media Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Josh Ellis makes an important note. “When prompted to take the survey, non-PPAI 100 respondents knew they had a chance to earn high marks among the industry’s strongest companies for growth,” Ellis says. “It’s likely that many companies who believed they wouldn’t compare favorably simply chose not to respond, which is heavily skewing the average among smaller suppliers.” For distributors, this number was more consistent across the segments than the supplier data is showing here. Such a high gross profit margin is a positive sign to see among smaller suppliers. In June, David Lever, VP of sales at PPAI 100 supplier OTTO International, told PPAI Media he sees gross profit margin statistics and TABLE 2 Gross Profit Margin PPAI 100 Suppliers 35% Suppliers $250M+ 20% Suppliers $50M-$250M 30% Suppliers $10-50M 42% Suppliers Under $10M 43% TABLE 1 Revenue Change Since 2019 PPAI 100 Suppliers 29% Suppliers $250M+ 47% Suppliers $50M-$250M 24% Suppliers $10-50M 17% Suppliers Under $10M 77% wonders “how much operational efficiencies added to or detracted from gross profit margin.” The average number of distributor clients among the industry’s largest suppliers (34,967) shows the breadth of promo’s distributorships and the diversity of possibilities that suppliers have with their potential partnerships. “Our industry is healthy and growing,” Mark Gammon, president and CEO of Cap America, told PPAI Media this year. The much smaller number when it comes to the under $10 million segment might be attributed to a ceiling in the number of distributor clients some smaller suppliers may be able to partner with given their available resources, but it also speaks to the value of the relationships those suppliers have with the distributor partners they maintain active business with. Order count refers to the number of orders processed by a supplier over the course of 2022. Brad Bartlett, president and owner of Opti Print & Fulfillment, used the revenue and order count averages to determine a rough TABLE 3 Active Distributor Company Clients PPAI 100 Suppliers 12,688 Suppliers $250M+ 34,967 Suppliers $50M-$250M 10,498 Suppliers $10-50M 4,190 Suppliers Under $10M 317 TABLE 4 Order Count PPAI 100 Suppliers 175,319 Suppliers $250M+ N/A Suppliers $50M-$250M 172,353 Suppliers $10-50M 43,162 Suppliers Under $10M 3,478 72 • DECEMBER 2023 • PPAI
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