3 Logical Entry Points for Commercial Printers Pushing Into Promo

There are many avenues for breaking into the $26.6 billion promotional products industry. In many ways, commercial printers are already ahead of the game, thanks to an intimate knowledge of things like inks, color matching and print on demand.

Consider these three popular categories as a starting point.

1. Apparel

Apparel is, by far, the largest product category, making up more than 36% of promo distributor sales, according to the 2024 Counselor magazine State of the Industry report. T-shirts alone accounted for about $4.5 billion in 2023 – amounting to 17.3% of overall sales. Coming in third on the list were polo shirts, with nearly $2.5 billion sales and 9.5% of market share.

T-shirts, like this Comfort Colors adult heavyweight tee (C1717) available from Counselor Top 40 supplier alphabroder (asi/34063), make up 17.3% of the promo market.

There are a variety of decoration methods available for adding logos and other graphics to garments. What you choose often depends on the type of garment being decorated and the overall effect you’re trying to achieve. Dye-sublimation, ideal for synthetic fabrics, is a boon for team sports, particularly when paired with the ease of printing variable data on uniforms. With sublimation, each jersey can be personalized with the athlete’s name and number as part of the garment, rather than relying on a secondary element, like heat transfer or tackle twill appliqué, to achieve the same effect.

Another method that’s been gaining steam is direct-to-film (DTF) technology, which allows promo distributors to print full-color, complex digital designs on apparel and accessories easily. The growth trajectory of the technique echoes the direct-to-garment printing boom of the early 2000s, albeit on a truncated, hyper-speed timeline.

For corporate-friendly apparel – think polos or quarter-zip pullovers – decoration methods like embroidery, heat transfers or three-dimensional emblems may be a better choice.

2. Drinkware

Drinkware has seen rapid growth in promo over the last few years. In 2017, drinkware accounted for 7.5% of promo sales. In 2023, that percentage had jumped up to 10.7% – accounting for $2.8 billion in promo distributor sales – making it the second-largest product category, after T-shirts, according to ASI Research. And in 2024, water bottles (No. 2), tumblers (No. 5), and mugs (No. 6) were all among the top 10 most-searched-for terms on ESP, ASI’s product sourcing tool, according to ASI Research.

Trendy brand Owala, offered in promo through ETS Express (asi/51197), is known for fun color combinations. The brand saw the biggest growth of any search term on ASI’s ESP tool from 2023 to 2024, shooting up 437%.

And many end-buyers are very specific about what they want. “Before, you could get away with a generic bottle or a no-name brand,” says Tommy Gomez, account director at promo distributor Brilliant. “Now, clients are coming and saying, ‘We want the Yeti, we want the Stanley, we want the Nalgene.’ They know the brands by name.”

The Stanley mania that took over popular culture in recent years also made its way into promo – so much so that ASI named the 40-oz. Quencher bottle the 2023 Product of the Year. But as some of the shine has worn off Stanley, other brands are quickly gaining steam: Owala saw the biggest growth from 2023 to 2024 among leading search terms on ESP, shooting up 437%, ASI Research found.

UV inkjet printing “can cost-effectively deliver vibrant full-color graphics in volumes as low as one” for drinkware and other promo categories, says Benjamin Adner, founder and chief innovation officer for Inkcups, a printing equipment supplier. “In addition to the tremendous design possibilities that enables, it also opens up possibilities for personalization and on-demand production.”

 3. Paper Products

There’s still room in promo for traditionally printed paper products. The catchall category of books, cards, postcards, stationery and giftwrap made up 2% of distributor sales – with $522 million in market share – last year. Calendars, in their own category, accounted for 1.4% – or $365 million – in distributors sales in 2024.

Calendars come in many shapes and sizes, like these stand-up desk calendar (4251) from Counselor Top 40 supplier Koozie Group (asi/40480).

Plus, kitted gift packages, which grew dramatically during the pandemic, often require custom printing of boxes and insert cards. Packaging became so important in recent years that ASI named it the 2022 Product of the Year. At the time, Andy Griffin, managing partner of Keepsake Products USA (asi/64180), called packaging “the quintessential promotional product,” noting that “it conveys branding, is elegant, tells a story and raises the perceived value of the products inside.”

Signage – another area where commercial printers likely have an edge – has also grown in the promo space, with yard signs being named ASI’s 2024 Product of the Year.