We did not - we ended up launching as a new ASI/PPAI supplier for hard goods only as the existing company had deep expertise in that space. This was a division of the team sports licensed products business.

Yes - it is often a race to the bottom. You don’t really want to be in a position where you’re competing on more or less commodity products (single color screen print, for example). I don’t know the apparel space as well, but there are very efficient large operations that will out price you every time on those orders (and their service level/quality is usually fine for the average promo customer). Promo products distributors can be very challenging to work with - large ones will expect rebates and EQP on all orders. They are not very loyal in my experience and will often shop multiple suppliers to see who has inventory and who can meet their timelines.

I would be looking for how this company wins business / what their value prop is, what is their go-to-market strategy and does it scale, and how sticky their customer relationships are.

Opportunities are in pricing strategies, service level / speed / inventory optimization, order and integrations technology (PromoStandards, CommonSKU integration, for example), and decorating technology (DTG, for example).

^redacted‌- Here is some benchmarking and market comps from BVR's DealStats platform. If you have any questions at all about the data, please don't hesitate to contact me. redacted