How much does customer service matter in the disposable glove industry?
To be honest, some folks likely don’t rate it as a prerequisite to doing business. Disposable gloves are a commodity operating in what can be a purely transactional universe. How much for the gloves? Great. Here’s your money. Next?
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.
During the pandemic, many distributors scrambled to find a glove vendor—while others dropped products altogether, including single-use gloves, because of the difficulty and/or cost of obtaining them.
Have you asked why you are buying from your current disposable glove vendor? Now might be the time to make sure that your organization has a clear understanding of what differentiates your suppliers.
Most disposable glove factories prefer to run their production lines almost non-stop to make money, in a concept known as factory utilization. It is common that a factory needs a 50% utilization rate to break even.
Throughout 2023, factory utilization rates for most of the disposable glove industry have been well below 50% because of massive capacity added during the pandemic and high excess inventory amounts at the end-user level.
We frequently hear from customers who say they bought gloves from another vendor at a low price, but they can’t find that deal again. In fact, that vendor can’t seem to source the glove at all.
If you’re an industrial distributor, you’ve likely come across vendors who can’t be trusted to consistently deliver what you need at a price that works for you. Sure, it’s nice to save a few bucks here or there on a case of gloves, but can you count on that arrangement to hold up over time?
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?
What’s so interesting about how disposable gloves are made? Quite a lot, it seems.
We frequently get questions about what’s involved in making gloves. We’ve also published a few blog posts over the years describing the manufacturing process, and they’re always among our most popular.
Second of three parts
Most distributor partners of AMMEX count disposable gloves as only a small percentage of their overall business. That figure is between 2% and 5%, depending on which industry they’re servicing.
That may not seem like much emphasis. But in truth, success is less about how much significance you attach to the percentage of gloves in your overall catalog. What really matters is market penetration and the percentage of overall glove spend you’ve captured within your customer base, says Corey Townsell, vice president of sales at AMMEX.
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.
If you’re a distributor, you should be stocking light-duty black nitrile gloves in abundance.
Why? They’re hot. End users want a glove that doesn’t show dirt and grime. They also want to look as professional as possible, which makes black the glove color of choice across countless industries.
