Counselor Top 40 distributor Stran Promotional Solutions (asi/337725) reported on May 15 that it increased first quarter sales 52.4% year over year to nearly $28.7 million – a gain primarily driven by an acquisition but also propelled by 11.2% organic growth.

Still, the top-line acceleration came as the publicly traded Quincy, MA-headquartered firm experienced a quarterly loss of $393,000, or -$0.02 per share.

Stran sustained the loss due to an approximately 44% increase in operating costs – itself the result of costs connected with the launch of a NetSuite enterprise resourcing planning system, legal/accounting expenses tied to a re-audit of historical financial statements, and outlay stemming from the August 2024 acquisition and subsequent ongoing integration of the Gander Group, a provider of casino continuity and loyalty programs.

Nonetheless, it was the acquisition that played a primary role in fueling Stran’s 50%-plus revenue jump – as well as a reported 51.1% year-over-year rise in gross profit to $8.5 million. Gross profit doesn’t factor into operating expenses and interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

“We are executing a focused plan to improve profitability through disciplined expense management, streamlined workflows and scalable infrastructure,” said Stran CEO Andy Shape, a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of promo’s most influential people. “The integration of the Gander Group assets, which has brought meaningful scale, greater diversification and valuable cross-sector opportunities to our business, remains on track, and we are already realizing synergies across sourcing, logistics and client engagement.”

Industrywide, promotional products distributors and suppliers reported sharp sales declines and steep drops in business confidence in the first quarter, due in significant part to marketplace volatility spawned by sweeping new import tariffs announced or implemented by President Donald Trump’s administration, according to the Distributor Quarterly Sales Survey from ASI Research.

Distributors’ collective sales dropped by 3.6% in the quarter compared to Q1 2024. Meanwhile, suppliers saw collective sales retreat, on average, by 4.8% in Q1 2025. The United States’ gross domestic product was down 0.3% in the first quarter of the year compared to the same quarter in 2024.

Stran experienced a $4.14 million loss in the full year of 2024 but increased sales 8.8% on a reported basis to $82.7 million. Notably, due to rules on how publicly traded firms can report revenue, Stran couldn’t include nearly $32 million from Gander that was generated prior to closing the acquisition.

In reporting revenue for consideration for Counselor’s annual Top 40 rankings of the industry’s largest distributors, Stran isn’t bound by as strict a standard. By including Gander Group’s almost $32 million, Stran’s 2024 revenue tallied up to nearly $114.1 million – a rise of about 39% on the apples-to-apples $82.1 million figure for 2023 that Stran reported to Counselor, which likewise included the full-year revenue of acquired companies for that year.

The new Counselor Top 40 rankings are due out this summer.