(Watch an interview with Keith Miller, president and CEO of Strategic Factory, here.) 

Each year, WhatTheyThink | Printing News invites small commercial print business owners to participate in our Top 100 Shops Survey. The key word is “small”; the upper limit for participation at $25 million in annual revenues. Our Top Shop this year came in at $23.90 million. This year’s winner was also last year’s winner, when they came in at $21.32 million. Given their trajectory, it’s possible they won’t qualify next year (this has happened with previous winners)—our loss is their gain.

In 2021, the shops included in our Top 100 list accounted for just under half a billion dollars in revenue—$492,162,223, representing a 6% increase from 2020. (In the year of Our Pandemic 2020, the Top Shops saw a 16% decline from 2019, so 2021 was very much a rebuilding year.) If we look at revenues for our top shops, 58% saw a 10%+ increase in revenues in 2021 from 2020, while 11% said 2021 saw a 6–10% increase over 2020 and a further 11% saw a 1–5% increase in revenues in 2021. Only 15% reported any decrease in revenues in 2021—a welcome change from 2020 when the majority of shops reported a decrease in revenues. (We won’t adjust for inflation.)