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Report: Wholesale Prices Rise at Record Pace in November

The promo products industry is feeling the inflationary pressure too, and prices on many items are expected to increase again in 2022.

It ain’t just promo.

Prices have been climbing on many promotional products in 2021 and are poised to increase again in 2022. It’s part of much broader inflation that was most lately evidenced by data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that revealed wholesale prices increased at a record pace in November.

hand holding a crumbling dollar bill

The bureau’s Producer Price Index for final demand soared 9.6% in November 2021 compared to the same month the prior year. It’s the largest year-over-year advance since such data was first calculated in November 2010. Previous records for a 12-month period were set in September and October of this year, when rises of 8.6% were recorded.

Excluding food, energy and trade services, final demand prices rose 6.9% – also a record, as it was the largest advance since 12-month data was first calculated on that in August 2014.

Month over month, the Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.8% in November. Excluding food, energy and trade services, the index on wholesale prices moved up 0.7% in November, the largest rise since climbing 0.8% in July.

Consumer prices are skyrocketing, too.

Earlier this month, the BLS revealed that its consumer-price index – which measures what consumers pay for goods and services – increased by 6.8% in November from the same month the prior year. It was the sharpest rise in a 12-month span in nearly 40 years, and the sixth straight month in which inflation rose above 5%.

“Whether it’s the food we buy, the gas we put in our vehicles or the heating oil we use to warm our homes, everything at the moment is more expensive,” says Dan Jellinek, executive vice president at Alpharetta, GA-headquartered Top 40 supplier The Magnet Group (asi/68507). “The promo world is not immune.”

Indeed, promo suppliers reported recently that prices on a broad spectrum of promotional products will increase, generally between 2% and 10%, in 2022. The percentage rise on certain items will be more, with some hikes proving far steeper.

Suppliers maintain that they’ve done their best to keep increases to a minimum. Nonetheless, they point to rapidly rising costs for things like labor, raw materials, transportation of goods, production, utilities and other factors (such as the diminishing value of the U.S. dollar against China’s yuan) that have made further price hikes necessary.