Benchmarking PPAI 100 Distributors KPIs for the industry’s leading companies. Average Median 2025 Revenue $111.67M $37.06M Revenue Change since 2022 29.17% 12.29% % of Revenue from New Clients 12.96% 10.00% Gross Profit 35.06% 35.00% Total Order Count 95,219 18,558 Avg. Order Size $2,724.10 $2,000.00 % of top 3 clients revenue 26.83% 25.00% % of revenue from Top 10% of Sales Rep 28.26% 26.00% Avg. number of Full-time Sales Rep 48 16 Avg. number of Full-time Customer Service 40 11 Avg. number of Full-time Finance Staff 8 6 Net Freight Profit/Loss 397,828.83 172,111.50 Avg days to payment 40 38 PPAI • JUNE 2026 • 59 Distributors | Must Read distributor platform is to become more centralized again. “By and large, the account executives have been pretty welcoming,” the same leader says. “They know that their customers have become more sophisticated. And they want more support on how to win them and how to go vertical.” In a near-future state envisioned by Hilt – part of the HALO Forward plan – that will mean marrying the traditional, personalized, relationship-based approach with the e-commerce model that has been so successful for the likes of 4imprint. He believes the two can coexist in one firm, beyond the realm of existing platforms like company stores. High-value clients receive the high-touch experience. Others may require only a simulation of the same. A shift like this, marrying distributor models that previously competed, would potentially reset the marketplace. But HALO has done that many times in its history. “We’ve defined ourselves and the industry in kind of a very low-growth to no-growth market, versus actually saying that there is a bigger opportunity that many of us are already doing,” Hilt says. “I just think that we need to redefine the industry that we’re playing in. And when you do that, suddenly the growth opportunity is pretty substantial.” Building The Engine With our time together beginning to wind down, Hilt laments that we haven’t talked more about tech. It’s really his specialty. Further improvement here will underpin all of the possibilities we’ve discussed. To outrun its reliance on heroics, HALO needs technology capable of scaling the superior judgment that has historically resided with its best sellers. That makes Erin DeCesare the most important hire of Hilt’s tenure. She was announced as HALO’s new chief product and technology officer just weeks before we meet in a side room off the resort lobby. And her ability to translate tech complexities to a layman such as myself does inspire confidence. DeCesare has done this kind of work before. Most recently, she helped evolve the marketplace platform at ezCater, and she previously held leadership roles within the merch industry. Her early mandate is clear: Find the fastest ways technology can create value for HALO’s sellers, then begin building toward something larger. The first step was Glean, a Gartnerrecognized internal AI platform DeCesare describes as a safe version of ChatGPT for HALO users. It honors permissions across the company’s file stores, allowing employees to search emails, documents, messages and knowledge bases without exposing proprietary information outside the organization. This security step in the age of AI was the lowest-hanging fruit and probably something
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