As 2024 winds down, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to establish consistent and predictable supply—especially at volume—while keeping costs in check. Along with reliable supply, the benchmarks of quality, compliance, and sustainability continue to become more important in the disposable glove market.
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The disposable glove market faces several unique cost drivers that impact the industry. Prices are expected to rise due to factors including increased factory utilization rates, higher prices for raw materials, and a weakening U.S. dollar.
Anybody who uses hand protection is well aware of the potential dangers on the job—or they likely wouldn’t be wearing gloves at all. Thousands of injuries occur nationwide every year. Maybe at your facility it’s one or two. For the folks that happened to, of course, that’s one or two too many.
Billions of disposable gloves are sold every year as companies do whatever they can to protect their workers. Are most of them sufficient? Probably. Are a substantial portion of them Gloveworks Nitrile with Raised Diamond Texture? Frustratingly, no—RDT, as we affectionately call it, in fact makes up less than 1% of the overall glove market.
Disposable glove factories, especially in Southeast Asia, continue to optimize their production lines. Some of the world’s largest makers of disposable gloves are working to return to profitability and expect it will take well into 2025 to do so.
Disposable gloves can seem pretty, well, disposable sometimes. You get 100 in a box, 1,000 in a case, and if one or two prove defective, hey, those are the breaks (or rips or punctures). Why would that be a big deal to anyone?
If you’ve used Gloveworks Black Nitrile (GPNB) disposable gloves, you know that they are the perfect combination of strength, dexterity, and comfort.
Now these versatile and dependable gloves can claim another important benefit: They are also free of silicone, which means the gloves will not transfer silicone residue and contaminate a project.
Currency has real impact on disposable glove prices. The currency exchange rate has been favorable to U.S. buyers in the single-use glove market the last few months, with a strong dollar trading at its highest rate in 20 years. If the dollar should stumble, glove prices are likely to feel upward pressure.
That is why it’s important to monitor international markets closely. If you hear the dollar is weakening, be prepared—and prepare your customers for what could lie ahead.
Throughout 2023, due to higher interest rates in the United States, the U.S. dollar exchange rate has been strong when compared with Asian currencies—and that helped to keep glove prices lower. The dollar exchange rates are now off their highs, which will erode the buying power of U.S. buyers.
This is all the more reason to order early and fill your inventory before outside factors complicate the market. AMMEX boasts a 98%-plus fill rate on its top products, so you stand to take advantage of an excellent opportunity.