I stopped at Trader Joe’s recently and asked about their latest mini totes. The cashier told me they had sold out within five minutes of opening. There had been a line out the door. And my Trader Joe’s is one of the smaller locations.
The $2.99 mini canvas totes may have taken the obsession to another level, but Trader Joe’s bags had a following long before that. Their reusable bags with rotating designs had been collectibles for years. They were durable, inexpensive, useful, and perhaps most importantly, people wanted to collect all the different prints.
That last part feels particularly Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s has built an entire shopping experience around discovery. Seasonal products disappear and return, or don’t. New flavors show up for a limited time. Fall arrives and suddenly the question becomes “what will they put pumpkin spice in this year?” There are products people wait all year to buy again. I’m still looking for a seasonal candle from a few years ago, and I can’t even remember which season it was for.
The bags work the same way. There are always new designs, different colors, seasonal versions, and mini versions. The product remains essentially the same, but there’s something new to discover and collect, and you want to get your hands on it before it disappears.
Why the mini totes in particular became popular enough to have people lining up before stores open, I still can’t entirely explain. But I don’t think their success happened in a vacuum. They fit remarkably well into a shopping culture Trader Joe’s had already created.
From a branding perspective, there’s another part of this that I find especially interesting. Earlier in my career, when clients were ordering screen-printed apparel, we would often encourage them to add branded totes to the order as well. They made great giveaways, and if the bag was useful and attractive enough that someone kept it, that person would carry the company’s branding around with them. Give away a tote and potentially get years of free advertising in return.
Trader Joe’s has somehow managed to improve that deal. People are paying them for the bag, sometimes lining up to do it, and then becoming walking advertisements for the brand.
And other brands have noticed. I’ve started seeing more branded merchandise that feels designed to be desirable in its own right. Whole Foods now has its own cute canvas totes, and at SIGGRAPH I received an Adobe bag that very clearly played off the Trader Joe’s aesthetic.
The tote itself isn’t a new marketing idea. What’s interesting is when the branded object stops feeling like promotional merchandise and becomes something people genuinely want to own.
Trader Joe’s didn’t just put its logo on a bag. It made the bag part of the same cycle of discovery and collectability that keeps people coming back to its stores.
Getting customers to advertise your brand for free is pretty good marketing. Getting them excited to pay you to do it is even better.