The books are closed on 2023, at least shipments-wise, and, well, December shipments came in at $6.98 billion, down from November’s $7.24 billion, well down from the year’s high a month earlier, and the lowest ebb of the year. True, business always drops in November and December as things slow down for the holidays. The exception was 2020, a phrase that could be used in so many contexts.

As a result, total shipments for 2023 came in at $87.37 billion, a scosh below 2022’s $90.88 billion. As printers told us throughout the year, and as our Fall Print Business Outlook survey found, 2023 wasn’t destined to be as high as 2022, which was a recovery from the carnage of the pandemic. 2023 was a bit of a reversion to the mean, and we expect 2024 to be a more or less “normal” year—if such a thing can be said to exist.

We’ll find out in a few weeks what hath January wrought.