To say that April was a whirlwind for the promo industry would be an understatement.

From ballooned tariffs on Chinese imports, to (announced and then paused) country-specific reciprocal levies on more than 90 nations, it was a month characterized by uncertainty over global trade – which extended into significant impacts on April promotional products sales and industry health projections for the remainder of the year.

A survey fielded by ASI Research at the close of the month – the first time ASI members were surveyed monthly rather than quarterly since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 – revealed that the vast majority of both suppliers and distributors were still acutely feeling the impacts of tariffs on their sales.

April’s volatility was preceded by a difficult Q1 that resulted in lackluster sales for the promo industry, with distributors reporting a collective sales decline of 3.6% – the industry’s biggest quarterly sales decrease in four years. The U.S. economy overall also shrank 0.3% in the quarter.

The difficulties for the promo industry continued into April, with equally as many distributors notching year-over-year sales increases compared to April 2024 as declines. (In Q1, 42% of distributors reported sales declines, compared to 39% in April.)

A greater percentage of suppliers reported decreased sales in April (45%) than their distributor counterparts. The figure, however, was a notable drop compared to the percentage of suppliers who reported sales decreases in Q1 (58%).

In the time since the survey was fielded in the first days of May, trade talks between the U.S. and China led to a 90-day agreement where the U.S. reduced its tariff rate on China-made imports in 2025 from 145% to 30%. (China agreed to reduce tariffs it put on many U.S.-made imports from 125% to 10% for the three-month pause.)

It was a resolution that many in the promo industry had hoped for and even expected, and it was reflected in ASI Research’s findings on their full-year outlooks.

Despite the uncertainty of the past few months, about half of distributors expected increased year-over-year sales in 2025 compared to 2024, with about a third of them anticipating lower 2025 sales.

But when asked in the beginning of May what their outlooks would be if the current tariffs had stayed in place for the remainder of 2025, half of distributors expected a decreased performance compared to 2024, versus just 3 in 10 that projected increased sales.

For suppliers, the difference was even starker, with 70% who had anticipated lower year-over-year sales and only less than 20% who could foresee an increase.

“What the April sales survey results tell me is that the story of 2025 is yet to be written,” said Nate Kucsma, ASI’s senior executive director of research. “The industry appears to have weathered April better than may have been expected, and we will see in next month’s survey if the reduction in Chinese tariffs will stoke sales and optimism.”

The levies have so far resulted in a massive slowdown in the number of Chinese shipping containers bound for the U.S. in April, as well as several sailings cancelled for May, The Wall Street Journal reported. Some promo companies had chosen to pause their imports in an effort to wait out the high levies.

Now, a rush of imports is anticipated, which is likely pressure the supply chain and cause shipping prices to spike, reminiscent of the post-COVID supply chain crisis.

Pricing had already been a major concern. ASI Research discovered that more than half of both suppliers and distributors had already raised prices as a result of increased costs due to tariffs. Several suppliers, including some focused on Made-in-the-USA items, have announced price freezes on current inventory, planning to absorb any additional tariff costs for the next few months or through the end of the year.

But the month of April saw a significant increase in the percentage of suppliers implementing promo price hikes, even small ones, because of the tariffs. As of early May, 60% of suppliers had raised prices – compared to 45% at the end of Q1 – including about a quarter who have raised prices more than 10%.

On the distributor side, that figure is 54%, with a fifth upping prices by more than 10%.

Prior to the Trump administration’s announcement about the China tariffs, concerns over tariffs, while still high, had rebounded a bit for distributors, with fewer distributors who had reported that they were “very concerned” about the impact of tariffs on 2025 business when surveyed in early May compared to early April, and slightly more that weren’t concerned.

On the supplier side, more than 60% of companies reported they were “very concerned” about potential impacts – a jump of 9 percentage points from the end of Q1.

With supplier sentiment around business impacts lower than distributors’, it’s no surprise that attitude is reflected in promo industry health ratings.

The Quarterly Sales Survey doesn’t typically field responses from suppliers, so ASI Research doesn’t have a baseline value for their industry confidence in 2024. But surveys at the end of Q1 and again at the end of April revealed very low scores on the Counselor Confidence Index, which measures the industry’s financial health and business optimism – scores that have ticked ever so slowly downward as the year progresses.

Distributors’ confidence ratings, though slightly higher than those for suppliers, have also been decreasing since the beginning of the year. After steadying at the baseline of 100 to close out 2024, promo’s lackluster Q1 saw a significant decline in Counselor Confidence Index scores – and they dropped again to 84 for April, and to 81 for end-of-year projections.

It’s worth noting, however, that end-of-year Counselor Confidence Index projections crept up in the April report compared to Q1. And it’s expected to climb higher in the wake of the latest news.

Beyond rising costs, promo companies are dealing with plunging consumer confidence in the economy. The Conference Board – a global nonprofit focused on business research – reported that its consumer confidence index dropped to its lowest monthly ratings since May 2020. Similarly, the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment has also nosedived to a level lower than anything recorded during the 2008 recession.

Typically, when consumers’ sentiments around the state of the economy worsen, they accordingly reduce spending, especially discretionary purchases. At the corporate level, that could include pulling back on categories like promo while the economy rides out the impacts of both inflation and tariffs.