Cimpress released its second-quarter earnings report yesterday, and it's a doozy. In a surprising move, the company will part with Vistaprint CEO Trynka Shineman after Vistaprint posted revenue growth of just 1 percent, while overall Cimpress revenue grew 8 percent, down from 32 percent in the second quarter of 2018. Robert Keane, Cimpress CEO, will serve as interim CEO for Vistaprint while the company looks for a replacement...
Sean Norris
The promo industry has come a long way from the days of cheap giveaways, the proverbial "trinkets and trash." The best companies have put the focus on value, quality and responsible sourcing, helping the industry to a record-breaking $23.3 billion in 2017 revenue. So why can't it shake the nagging perception that it sells mostly cheap swag—and why does it matter?...
It was 2010, and Delta Marketing Group was at a crossroads. As the recession bottomed out, the company lost its top three clients. To survive, it would have to reinvent itself as more than just a promotional products seller. For Cathy Houston, vice president for Delta Marketing Group, that meant one thing...
How's a small or independent distributor supposed to compete with Amazon and the mega online promo distributors? It's a question we hear a lot, especially as those large distributors grab more and more of the market share. But there might be a simple answer: Don't even try...
At the G-20 summit in Argentina, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached an agreement that will put a temporary hold on U.S. plans to increase tariffs on Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent. The two countries will have 90 days from Jan. 1, 2019, to negotiate a long-term agreement...
The World Series is over, with the Boston Red Sox cruising to a 4-1 series win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. But, honestly, who cares, because we need to talk about the digital vending machines Adidas used to dispense piles of branded World Series merchandise and promote a new line of shoes...
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed taking a (presumably) tongue-in-cheek shot at Major League Baseball's playoff hoodies. These are the ones—adorned with each team's postseason slogan and logo and various MLB branding—that players wear in the dugout, because October baseball is a frigid, hellish nightmare that serves only to remind us…
If things were looking good for distributors in 2017, they were even better for promotional products suppliers. While our Top 50 distributors totaled just over $5 billion in promotional products sales last year, the 2018 Top 50 Suppliers totaled $5.3 billion, besting their $4.6 billion 2016 total by a full $690 million (a 14.9 percent increase)...
Have you ever seen "The Town," the 2010 crime thriller that's set in Boston and ends in a climactic action sequence at Fenway Park? Well, strap in, because this story from the Boston Globe is like the real-life version of that, except it's about a promotional banner and it involves significantly less Ben Affleck...
Amazon Business, the e-commerce titan's B2B marketplace for everything from staplers to suspenders, launched in 2015, replacing a previous iteration of the service known as Amazon Supply. That first year, Amazon Business generated a tidy $1 billion in sales. Just three years later, it's already set to top $10 billion...
Last week, One Direction's online merchandise store shut down. That might not seem like a huge deal, but there's actually one legitimately fascinating aspect to it, especially for promo professionals. Stick with me here...
In promo, things are going to go wrong. But, believe it or not, there's a way for distributors to turn mistakes and unfortunate circumstances into big business wins. BrandVia's Eric Nelsen told us how, sharing an example of a promotion that went off the rails...
Inc. recently released the latest installment of its Inc. 5000, the always highly anticipated list of America's fastest-growing companies. SwanLeap, a company that provides software for the logistics industry, topped the list with an eye-popping 75,661 percent three-year growth, but that's not why we're here. We're here to talk about the promo connections...
You could spend countless words and hours trying to parse Elon Musk's weird, controversial genius, so we're not going to do that here. Instead, we're going to focus on that other thing Elon Musk is: promotional products virtuoso. The latest entry in his oeuvre? Tesla short shorts. Maybe...
On Wednesday, CafePress released its second-quarter financials, giving us our first look at how recent moves aimed at offsetting the company's recent struggles are translating to the balance sheet. The results were mixed...
