Why tote bags are having a moment

While tote bags aren’t new, the products have been in extra-high demand lately. Some of this is economical; more consumers are opting for bags at more accessible price points as they look for ways to save money. What’s more, as of 2024, 20 U.S. states have banned plastic bags, leading customers in those markets to look for reusable alternatives. And — in a trend that’s taking off on social media — consumers are increasingly personalizing their totes. These go beyond simple modifications, like monogramming a bag with a person’s initials, with more people opting to include unconventional statements like “not not designer“ and “hot mess” as a form of self-expression. On TikTok, there are 13.3 million posts about the topic “monogrammed tote.”

Lands’ End has sold a tote since the 1970s but decided to put more marketing dollars behind the product in the past few months after seeing “so much noise in the market,” Trainor told Modern Retail. “We’ve made it a focus in PR, we’ve made it a focus in influencers and we’ve made it a focus in all of our upper-funnel activations,” he added. In fact, on Tuesday, the brand debuts a new trade-in program around its totes. People can pay $1 to swap a canvas tote from any brand for two Lands’ End canvas totes in medium and large. Lands’ End will work with the University of Madison to upcycle the bags it collects into a new product that is still yet to be decided.

Trainor said Lands’ End was inspired to create the promotion after being “too modest” about what makes its tote bags different. Its bags have external and internal pockets, unlike some of its competitors, he stressed. “We’ve got all these solution-oriented products out there that we want to tell the world about,” he said. “And this is a first start.” Lands’ End will continue to put its weight behind totes and will roll out a new tote bag, the Wanderweight tote, on August 28.

L.L. Bean’s Boat and Tote, a top seller in the tote bag category, came onto the market in 1944, in a previous iteration called “Bean’s ice carrier.” Back then, customers used the bag to transport blocks of ice during World War II. L.L. Bean reintroduced the product in 1965 in its modern form. Today, shoppers mostly use L.L. Bean’s Boat and Tote to shuttle books, water bottles and laptop computers.

Demand for L.L. Bean’s bag has spiked over the years. The Boat and Tote become the “top contributor to new customer growth” in fiscal 2023, according to a company press release. An L.L. Bean spokesperson also told the Associated Press that sales of the tote grew 64% from the 2021 fiscal year to the 2023 fiscal year. In a press release from 2023, L.L. Bean said sales of the company’s canvas bags were at a 10-year high.

Adding to the bags’ popularity, some people are monogramming their L.L. Bean totes with cheeky or ironic phrases to show off their personalities. One of the earliest people to do this was a New Yorker named Gracie Wiener, who racked up a combined 90,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok by posting photos of her L.L. Bean bags with monogrammed phrases like “Prada,” “allergic” and “fake heiress,” beginning in 2022. She went on to write a piece for Air Mail in 2022 called “The Boat and Tote and Me.” “I started ironically embroidering L. L. Bean tote bags as a joke,” the subhead of the article reads. “Then it went viral.”

Now, there are hundreds of videos on social media of others doing the same. One TikTok video from May 2023 cycles through pictures of L.L. Bean bags monogrammed with “cry baby,” “stuff me” and “full of it.” (The video has racked up nearly 142,000 views.)

Users are lining up to buy small totes, too. In February, Trader Joe’s released a mini tote that soon sparked a frenzy on social media. The bags, which originally retailed for $2.99, became popular in Japan and resold for as much as $2,999 on eBay at one point, per the BBC. To further meet demand, in June, Trader Joe’s introduced a mini version of its insulated tote bag. Again, customers snapped up the bags in a matter of days. Trader Joe’s restocked them in July.

Trader Joe’s did not expect its mini totes to resonate so strongly with audiences, it has said. In a June episode of the podcast “Inside Trader Joe’s,” Trader Joe’s marketing execs revealed the company made enough mini tote bags to last for several weeks, or even a month. Instead, the bags flew off the shelves in under a week. “We had no inkling that they would be this exciting, this quickly, for so many customers,” Matt Sloan, Trader Joe’s vp of marketing, said.

Trader Joe’s began selling reusable, canvas bags in 1977, so tote bags are nothing new for the company. But, Sloan said on the podcast, “We know that people like to have maybe a fresh design, a new colorway on a reusable bag.” He added, “The whole diminutive thing is fun, and what makes this really special is, it’s so well made.”

The premium accessories brand Caraa is also getting more requests for its totes, co-founder Aaron Luo told Modern Retail. So far, Caraa is seeing a 22% increase in tote bag sales this summer compared to last summer. While tote sales tend to rise during warm-weather months, this year’s increase is “slightly higher than usual,” Luo said. He attributes this spike to interest in the totes’ designs, pockets and materials.

Jamie Arena, a freelance retail consultant and former vice president at Dressbarn, told Modern Retail that she believes tote bags are taking off because they are “utilitarian, but at the same time, with all the embroidery options on them, you really can have [them] be your own.” And, with so many tote bags selling for under $10, $20 or $50, “you can be stylish at a great value,” she pointed out.

Lands’ End’s Trainor agreed. “It’s just a fun, clever, easy way to have a little bit of personality in your everyday,” he said. “I anticipate that for the year, our tote will crack the top five [at Lands’ End].”