Canadian distributors are still grappling with supply chain woes.

State of the Industry data from ASI Research indicates that nearly 8 in 10 distributors lost an order due to a supply chain issue in 2025, up from 45% in 2023. Meanwhile, 87% of orders arrived on time and 81% of orders arrived without mistakes, down from 87% in 2023.

Now, more than 9 in 10 distributors are concerned about disruption this year, particularly as conflict in the Middle East continues.

Brian Leigh, vice president of sales and marketing at Promotional Source (asi/301292) in Oakville, ON, says his team continues to deal with order challenges from suppliers, namely late deliveries and errors once the products arrive. He adds that they don’t hesitate to purchase from alternative suppliers if mistakes persist, despite their best efforts to work with the firm to correct them.

“It’s mostly wrong colours and wrong sizes of apparel,” Leigh says. “These seem to be picking errors mostly – for example, we order quarter zips and get T-shirts, or order black and get orange. Suppliers have a lot of new employees.”

Leigh adds that food and beverage, aviation, and power generation were his company’s top end-buyer markets in 2025. Now, he’s keeping an eye on the political and economic situations in Canada, which was rattled last year by a prime minister shake-up and continues to contend with shifting trade relations with the U.S., a high cost of living and geopolitical concern.

“There was a lot of political uncertainty that affected the economy last year,” he says, “which had more of an effect on sales numbers than tariffs alone.”

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