Importantly, as a result of our ongoing efforts, we have continually been recognized in the industry and I’m honored to jump 21 places to 24th in the Advertising Specialty Institute’s 2023 Annual Listing of the Most Powerful People in the Promotional project — Products Industry, which follows our Top 40 Distributor ranking. In addition, I’m proud to say that I was named the 2023 Counselor Person of the Year by ASI. ASI serves a network of 25,000 suppliers distributors and decorators in the $26.1 billion promotional products industry and being the knowledge what their awards validates our progress, including accelerated revenue growth and our ongoing business efforts become an even more recognizable leader within the industry. Overall, we have implemented and continue to follow a carefully crafted growth strategy.
This strategy has led to profitability for 2023 along with securing new contracts, improving business operations, and introducing new technology offerings. As I mentioned earlier, the improvements in our operations and increased efficiency are even more evidenced by our impressive fourth quarter results. We remain dedicated to our growth strategy and are confident that we will solidify our position as a leader in the $26 billion promotional products industry. At the same time, we have preserved a strong balance sheet with $18.5 million in cash and investments as of December 31, 2023. Excluding rewards — our rewards program liabilities, we maintain cash and investments of approximately $17.6 million as of December 31, 2023, compared to approximately $90 million as of December 31, 2022, demonstrating our ability to simultaneously maintain strong growth while prudently managing our cash.
These funds continue to provide us with the flexibility to explore strategic opportunities as they arise. In summary, our objective is to continue to execute our growth strategy. This includes innovating investing in technology, launching sales and marketing initiatives to deepen our client relationships and selectively pursuing acquisitions to support our expanding operation. At this point, I’d like to turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, David Browner to go over the financials in detail. David, please go ahead.
David Browner: Thank you, Andy. Sales increased 28.7% to approximately $75.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, from approximately $59 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. The increase was primarily due to higher spending from existing clients as well as business from new customers. Additionally, the acquisitions of the G.A.P. Promotions assets in January 2022, the Trend Brand Solutions assets in August of 2022, the Premier NYC assets in December 2022 and the T R Miller assets in January 2023 accounted for approximately $14.7 million or 19.4% of sales for 2023 compared to approximately $6.5 million or 11% of sales for 2022. Reoccurring organic sales defined as sales excluding revenue from acquisitions of the assets from each of G.A.P. Promotions, Trend Brand Solutions, Premier NYC and T R Miller increased 16.6% or approximately $8.7 million to approximately $61.2 million for year ended December 31, 2023, compared to approximately $52.5 million for year ended December 31, 2022.
Gross profit increased 50.2% to approximately $24.9 million or 32.8% of sales for the year ended December 31, 2023 from approximately $16.6 million or 28.1% of sales for the year ended December 31, 2022. The increase in the dollar amount gross profit was due to increased sales, partially offset by an increase in purchasing and freight costs. Net income for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $35,000 compared to a net loss of $778,000 for year ended December 31, 2022. This change was primarily due to the increase in sales during the year ended December 31, 2023, partially offset by an increase in operating expenses. At December 31, 2023, the company had approximately 15 — $18.5 million in cash and investments and no long-term debt. At this point, I’ll turn the call back over to Andy.
Andy Shape: Thank you, David. We take great pride in the achievements we’ve accomplished thus far, including profitability, securing new contracts and raising Stran’s visibility. Most importantly, we are beginning to realize greater efficiency and economies of scale that we continue to enhance our profitability. We eagerly anticipate further benefits from our growth initiatives, and we’ll share updates as they develop. I’d like to thank you for joining the call today. At this point, we’d like to open it up — open up the call to questions. Operator?
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Thank you. We have a question from Bill Jordan, who is a Private Investor. Your line is live.
Bill Jordan: Thank you. Andy, congratulations on the solid results. Just have a couple of questions for you. You made some new hires this year. Can you give us any more kind of background on the people that you hired and why?
Andy Shape: Sure. So I’ll go in order. The first one that we discussed is Ian Wall for our Chief Investor — Chief Information Officer. We’re really excited to have Ian on board. He worked within the education and pharmaceutical sectors. Very smart individual that has an extensive background with both implementing ERPs like NetSuite, SAP and other ERP similar to what we’re implementing for Stran right now to create more efficiencies as well as integrating that with eCommerce, so that they’re seamlessly attached to one another. And again, looking to make it easier for our customers to do business with us on a technology front and easier for our employees to process those orders and run the operations of the business. So we’re really excited about Ian and we’re excited to have him take over the reins to lead our technology initiatives well in the future.
Additionally, we hired Nick Kiefer as our VP of Sales — Senior Vice President of Sales. Nick’s a true pro within the promotional products industry, helping companies grow from midsize company to large players within the industry. We recruited Nick and brought him on board because of his ability to be a strong leader within our sales organization. We have over — we have about approximately 36 sales reps and approximately 30 internal reps that roll up to him. And we’re really excited because he’s really helping them expand their business maximize their potential through leadership coaching and strategic initiatives. So we’re really excited about Nick and alongside with Nick is Michele Pytlinski, who is the VP of Client Success. And really what we’re trying to ensure that as we have clients, we’ve been in business for almost 30 years, we have a great reputation.
