2023 Top Suppliers: An Analysis of Industry Success and Pain Points

The world is different than it was in 2020, but it's not quite back to the normal we knew in 2019. There are plenty of "new normals" still to take into account.

We're still worrying about inflation. We're concerned about how suppliers will find the materials for their products. We're still thinking about labor and staffing issues. Supply chain and shipping issues haven't completely vanished.

Within the promotional products industry, those issues have become the status quo. The only constant is change, as they say.

Our annual Top Suppliers list serves as a snapshot of the industry. It showcases success stories, and allows viewers to see overall how these variables affect the way suppliers are getting by.

Taking a look at this year's list, there were plenty of places to find encouragement and optimism. Of the companies on the list, 54 of them reported an annual revenue increase. Six companies reported the same revenue as the year prior. One reported a loss, but still ranked in the top 50 companies.

Speaking of that growth, four companies on the list reported growth equal to our greater than 50%. Four companies saw growth higher than 40%.

Those who pay attention to our lists every year will see a familiar face at the top of the list. Since its acquisition of Prime Line, alphabroder has ranked No. 1 on our list. Within the top 5, HPG saw 25% revenue increases, and Hit Promotional Products reported 46% to reach over a half-billion dollars in revenue.

Once again, all four regions of the U.S. (Northeast, South, Midwest, and West) were home to at least one company's headquarters.

On the employment side, the top suppliers list of companies employed more than 16,000 people across 156 locations. The average size was 245 employees, with the highest being 3,735.

It's not just blind optimism, though. We also made a point to address pain points within the industry, with each supplier company ranking on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being "as bad as it gets" and 10 being "excellent") how they would rate the current states of shipping/lead times, product pricing, labor/staffing, and product availability.

There is plenty more to get into, but we'll let the data do the talking for us.

Download the full 2023 Top Suppliers and Supplier Excellence Resource here.

In this resource, readers will see a detailed analysis of this year's findings, followed by a Top 50 chart, individual product category breakdown, and company profiles featuring senior team members.

Finally, the resource also includes the full results of the 2023 Supplier Excellence Awards, an annual celebration of the industry's best supplier companies as voted by you, the readers.