Historically, people who work on cars and trucks have not widely used disposable gloves. For generations of mechanics, hand protection simply was not a big concern.
Why? In many cases—at least until the last couple decades—they lacked the information they needed to make the right choice for safety. Heck, even today the industry is only 120 or so years old. The evolution to new ideas can be long and laborious.
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.
We often have conversations about this question with customers and partners, and while the precise answer may vary, we aim to keep it simple: We help our customers buy the right disposable glove for the job. And we effectively reduce risk with expert services and tools.
Since the company’s founding in 1988—yes, in March we’re coming up on 35 years in business—we’ve been helping our clients with all aspects of global procurement, supply chain, and operations to ensure quality and efficiency in the single-use glove market.
First of two parts
The new year has the potential to be wildly successful for distributors that sell disposable gloves. In 2023, the $15 billion-plus market will continue to evolve as we put the worst of the pandemic behind us.
What makes us say this?
First of three parts
All things considered, it’s relatively simple to get started selling gloves and pick up a few thousand bucks in the process. Get your reseller certificate, knock on some doors, lay out a good spiel, and you too can move some nitrile or latex or vinyl product.
But how do you grow those sales to $10,000, $100,000, or more? Where does the magic kick in and elevate the proceedings to a higher plane?
The disposable glove market is in a vastly different position from the last couple of years. Yes, it’s still dynamic and unpredictable, but opportunities for glove distributors are everywhere.
The first two years of the pandemic caused havoc for everybody, and the glove market was certainly no exception. A global surge in demand for gloves sent manufacturers scrambling to keep up. The resulting fallout from being unable to deliver needed product pushed every manufacturer to increase production capacity. That led to ample supply coming online in the second half of 2022.
For importers and distributors affected over the last couple years by supply chain dysfunction—in other words, pretty much everybody—the big picture is looking a bit brighter.
Shipping bottlenecks are beginning to loosen. The recent drop in wholesale inflation (for the first time in two years) provided a sign that some of the U.S. economy’s inflationary pressures have begun to cool. The New York Fed’s Global Supply Chain Pressure Index fell for the third straight month in July, hitting its lowest point since January 2021.
If you thought the global supply chain would in 2022 be back to pre-pandemic status, you might want to reconsider.
A new survey of supply chain executives by Carl Marks Advisors, in partnership with SupplyChainBrain, underscores the deep and lasting impact of COVID-related supply chain disruptions.
