Not surprisingly, 15 months after the pandemic reached global proportions, sales of face masks are petering out. Not only have consumers at this point purchased more of them than they know what to do with, but most retailers have stopped placing new orders save for occasional replenishment requests.

A Small Fraction
At Trevco’s Mask Club.com, which led the online licensed mask charge and  generated $200,000 in daily revenue at the height of the pandemic in the U.S., sales are now about $2,000 a day, says Trevco CEO Trevor George. He says that for masks to be profitable now, they must be packaged with another product, since the average order doesn’t support selling them separately. As a result, Trevco will seek to renew some agreements that expire this year with no minimum guarantees, given the “volatile” nature of the business, says George.

And FOCO, which has licensing agreements for masks with the major U.S. professional sports league and 200 colleges and universities and is the exclusive on-field supplier this season for Major League Baseball  (MLB), hasn’t shipped any new orders recently and has told suppliers to hold off re-starting production, says Matthew Katz, Senior Licensing Manager.

Selling Off Inventory
The company is selling off existing inventory from its web site and through MLB team stores in the stadiums and online, says Katz. It shared the MLB mask business during the 2020 season with New Era and licensed head band supplier Bani Bands, but signed an exclusive agreement for this season. Sales also have slowed in the UK, where Foco sells masks for several Premier League soccer teams, including Arsenal, Aston Villa and Burnley as well as the UK rugby team British Irish & Lions, says Katz.

“It has definitely slowed quite a bit and I don’t think we are taking very many new orders,” says Katz. “We are selling a decent amount through our web site, but nowhere near the levels of a year ago. With baseball, we have the agreement for the season, but we will try to make adjustments if need be because this isn’t necessarily a must-have product and could be gone by 2022.  It’s not a hat or a jersey.”

The slow sales also were evident when Etsy, where the numbers of makers producing masks rose five-fold to 20,000 in a matter of days last April, released financial results last week. Face masks accounted for 2.5% of Etsy’s gross merchandise sales ($3.1 billion), down from 4% the previous quarter and 14% in the year-ago quarter; makers sold 12 million masks in April 2020 alone, when it accounted for 17% of the month’s GMS.