To remain in business during the pandemic, Sean Ono made the same decision that employers across the branded merchandise industry and beyond were forced to make:
Jobs had to be cut.
Thus, the CEO and co-owner of Eagle Promotions (PPAI 279851, Gold), PPAI 100’s No. 45 distributor, reduced headcount by 58%, dropping from 180 employees to 75.
“I told everyone that I had to make certain decisions so there’s a company for you to come back to,” Ono says. “When we started bringing people back, not everybody could return. We lost a lot of institutional knowledge because a lot of our good people didn’t come back to the screen-printing industry.
“For the last three years, we’ve been struggling…”
Margin Pressure
Business hasn’t been normal since COVID, Ono says.
For instance, the first two months of the year are traditionally the slow season for Eagle Promotions, which designs branded merch for corporate promotions as well as private label and licensed products for retail partners.
But this year, Ono says, sales were slow through May.
Tariffs may be the most visible source of pressure, but they’re part of a broader reset in the economics of branded merchandise. Procurement costs, freight, compliance requirements and tighter client budgets are becoming the industry’s operating baseline.
- Among PPAI 100 suppliers, 60% report higher landed product costs, 60% cite pricing uncertainty and 51% report reduced gross margins.
- Distributors face less direct margin damage, but the pressure appears elsewhere. More than half (56%) report higher supplier costs, 44% cite pricing uncertainty and 42% say customer decisions are being delayed.
“Buyers are asking more questions, seeking alternatives, reducing orders or taking longer to commit,” says Alok Bhat, market economist and director of research and public affairs at PPAI.
Sean Ono
CEO/Co-Owner, Eagle Promotions
Eagle Promotions, which works with Disney, Universal Studios, Hard Rock, Starbucks, T-Mobile and Pokémon, among other well-known brands that purchase large volume, can attest.
“Their margins have been getting squeezed so they’re putting more pressure on us to be more competitive,” Ono says. “It’s counterintuitive because our overhead is going up, especially wages.”
For more than 20 years, Eagle Promotions ran both day and night shifts. But a year and a half ago, Ono decided to eliminate the night shift to nearshore some projects, relying upon factories in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
“The need from our clients was better pricing, so we imported,” Ono says.
However, the firm still handles many of its orders in its Las Vegas home of 30 years, running 10 automatic presses to meet demand. “Domestic manufacturing is important for quality control,” Ono says. “When our clients make a mistake and need more ordered for tomorrow, it’s a value add that we can make that happen.”
‘Their Work Ethic Is Different’
Despite the U.S. labor market being characterized as “low-hire, low-fire” as of late, Ono is eager to find qualified candidates. But competition is fierce in “Sin City.”
“Vegas is arguably the toughest labor market in the country,” Ono says. “We compete with all the casinos and corporations that employ hundreds of thousands of people.”
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The local screen-printing labor pool has dried up, Ono says, as the company has cycled through all the available talent. Now the goal is to find someone that’s a good leader who can train novices, which isn’t easy to find, Ono says.
Additionally, Eagle Promotions hasn’t been able to retain the next generation of the workforce. “When you’re trying to bring in people in their 20s and 30s, their work ethic is different,” Ono says.
“They don’t want to stand on their feet and do a manual job for eight to 10 hours a day. We have guys that come in and last only 24 to 48 hours just standing there folding and bagging T-shirts. They’re just not cut from the same cloth anymore. It’s really hard to find somebody who wants to work when you can go to McDonald’s and get a job for $18 an hour.”
Riding The Roller Coaster
As a result of eliminating the night shift, more cuts were made.
“We wanted to give A players the opportunity to come to day shift, and a lot of them took it,” Ono says. “So, it was also an opportunity to weed out some of the C players.”
How does Ono differentiate between A players and C players? Attention to quality and pride in one’s work. “We’re a family-owned business, so having that culture is important,” he adds. “We have employees who have been with us for nearly 30 years. Most have been with me at least 10 to 20 years.”
The company has since increased to 155 employees, including tech designers, merchandisers, product developers and nearly a dozen artists.
Alok Bhat
Market Economist, Research & Public Affairs Director, PPAI
Before June, Ono considered downsizing again. Because of how slow business had become, he asked his team if they’d rather do layoffs and give everyone left 40 hours a week or keep everyone but scale back to 32 hours a week. The latter prevailed.
Indicative of how unpredictable the market has been, business has skyrocketed over the summer. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and everyone has been receiving overtime to meet demand. Ono even brought in temporary workers for a resurrected night shift.
“You have to be very careful how quickly you downsize because when the business comes in, you have to be able to turn the machines back on to handle the volume,” he says. “It’s a give and take of cutting costs, saving money and being transparent with your employees. In two years, I might only have five or six presses running, but so be it. We’ll adapt to that.”
Considering that June was a record month for the company, Ono is extremely bullish for the rest of 2026.
“We’re diversifying our business, which has been extremely beneficial for us,” he says. “We’re having strategic meetings with our clients and talking about their needs. We let them know we’re not a T-shirt company – we’re a sourcing and solutions company. We just so happen to sell promotional items.”
