Does quality control in disposable gloves matter?
Of course it does, but it is likely that every glove supplier views it differently.
At AMMEX, we directly inspect every shipment right at the factory—100% of them, unlike any other independent glove supplier. We work with dozens of factories and trust them to follow our detailed specifications. But, in the words of Ronald Reagan, we “trust, but verify.”
Most customer-facing employees working for any industrial distributor—no matter how knowledgeable they are—are likely not as successful at selling disposable gloves. That’s no knock on anybody, just the truth that accompanies an unusual product.
Why? Because gloves are a strange commodity: Practically every business uses them, but sales reps who truly understand the nuances of the product or the market are few and far between.
Lots of people and companies can claim to be reliable. What do reliability and consistency in relation to the industrial disposable glove market mean to you?
Here is what they mean to us:
When you partner with AMMEX, you get a lot more than a company selling you single-use gloves.
For one thing, you get to feel confident. And there’s a lot of benefit in that.
There is nothing worse than when you and your customers are waiting on products. Not only is it aggravating and heartburn-inducing, but it also can damage your business relationships.
Don’t put yourself through the headaches of wondering when your shipments are going to arrive. If you use vendors that are not well-connected with a network of factories, it can cause problems for keeping your customers supplied.
Everybody expects disposable gloves to be of top quality. It’s considered the baseline (even if not every vendor lives up to it).
Very few vendors that sell gloves, however, go a step further and insert an extra layer of quality control that involves 100% inspections.
AMMEX just completed its first survey of gloves with Raised Diamond Texture (RDT).
We asked dozens of users to give us their impressions of our RDT suite of single-use gloves: 8-mil orange (GWON) and green (GWGN), and 6-mil black (GWBN) and royal blue (GWRBN). This provided a useful snapshot of a much larger field of opinion.
Domestic transportation prices—another important variable in the overall cost of single-use gloves—spiked during the pandemic. They have been dropping, but are unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels due to the cost of labor and the general impact of inflation and higher interest rates.
Most companies that need warehousing to store imported products, such as disposable gloves, have seen significant price increases over the past two to three years. Even as supply chain inflation slows, warehouse rates are high because there is a lot of inventory, which leaves less space for new product.
International shipping is another cost variable that exerts outsized influence on the price of disposable gloves.
Ocean freight rates in 2023 have been on a steady decline for shipping containers from SE Asia to U.S. West Coast ports. Experts fear transport companies will try to force up prices by making fewer voyages and leaving containers behind, delaying the delivery of goods.
The three primary variables that have an often outsized impact on the single-use glove market are production, international logistics, and U.S. market conditions. Within those variables are a number of sub-variables that can move in opposite directions and in different timelines.
Production happens primarily in Southeast Asia, where up to 80% of single-use gloves are made. The biggest glove-making countries are Malaysia and Thailand—which have dominated the glove trade for years—Vietnam, and Indonesia. China is also a growing player in the global market.
