Signs of life are returning to promo sales.

4imprint (asi/197045), the largest distributor by revenue in the North American promotional products industry, said on Tuesday, June 16 that its sales are starting to partially rebound from the lows experienced during coronavirus-driven societal lockdown measures that were implemented earlier this spring.

Kevin Lyons-Tarr, CEO, 4imprint

In a trading update, the U.K.-headquartered firm, whose main operations are in Oshkosh, WI, said its weekly order counts are now running at about half of what they were during the same period in 2019.

While still a sizable year-over-year decline, the order count performance is an improvement over late March and early April, when economic fallout from shutdown mandates resulted in daily order counts being down about 80%, compared to the prior year.

As the industry’s largest distributor, 4imprint’s performance can act as a kind of bellwether for how industry sales on the whole might perform. Counselor has previously reported that some distributors in areas where reopening initiatives started early have begun to see a rise in interest again from end-clients keen to buy traditional promotional products.

Reopening efforts are accelerating across the U.S. How's that impacting the #promoproducts industry? What are the challenges and opportunities? We dig into that here. https://t.co/uZQ8h4EezQ @asicentral @ASI_MBell @Tim_Andrews_ASI @Notready4Radio @SaraLav_ASI

— Chris Ruvo (@ChrisR_ASI) June 12, 2020

“As the partial or full lifting of (lockdown) restrictions began in many U.S. states in May and early June, weekly order counts have steadily increased,” 4imprint said in its trading update. “Importantly, we continue to acquire new customers and the new-to-existing customer ratio has remained broadly stable over this period.”

While headquartered in the United Kingdom, 4imprint earns the vast majority of its sales in North America. Both its Wisconsin and Manchester, U.K. facilities have reopened. Where practical, team members have continued to work from home. In-facility workers are following social distancing protocols, the company said.

4imprint reported that its cash balances at the end of May 2020 were $28.1 million. The company carries no debt. It has a working capital facility of $20 million.

In 2019, 4imprint’s North American sales were nearly $839.3 million – up 17% over 2018. Combining that tally with global sales (the U.K. and Ireland), 4imprint’s total revenue last year was $860.84 million, also about a 17% rise over 2018. Similarly, after-tax profit leapt more than 21% year over year to $42.71 million.