US promotional product sales break industry record

The Advertising Specialty Institute® (ASI) released its annual sales analysis for the US promotional products industry, showing total sales during 2013 of $20.5 billion, up 5.3% from 2012, with continued strong sales forecast throughout 2014.

Sales of promotional products have now increased for 16 straight quarters, according to ASI supplier and distributor sales reports. ASI commissioned the entire exclusive survey to estimate industry sales for 2013 and the outlook for 2014. Invitations went to ASI distributor members who were the primary contact with their firms, and had been in business at least one year. The report found that the US promotional products industry is growing at over twice the rate of the economy.

According to ASI reports, generally, as the size of a distributorship increased, so did the proportion with higher sales in 2013 than 2012. Over 86% of larger distributors (over $5 million in sales) reported an increase, compared to less than two-thirds (65%) of smaller distributors (less than $250,000 in sales). Jo-an Lantz, executive vice president of Top 40 distributor Geiger (asi/202900), told ASI's Counselor PromoGram: "Our overall experience is that we saw growth greater than the industry average. We anticipate another great sales year in 2014. The industry will have another growth year, and we are expecting the same."

The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that real GDP - which measures output produced in the U.S. -grew at an annual rate of 2.6% in the fourth quarter of 2013. Averaged across the four quarters of last year, real GDP added 1.9% in 2013 from 2012. Economists predict the U.S. economy will grow by 3% in 2014, the fastest rate of expansion since 2005. By contrast, the promotional products industry was up 5.3% from 2012 to 2013.

ASI is the largest media, marketing and education organisation serving the promotional products industry, with a network of over 25,000 distributors and suppliers throughout North America.

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