Lessons From The Internet's Anger Toward an Influencer's $120 Tote Bag

Everyone loves a good tote bag, right? It's got to be one of the most popular accessories on the market right now. Even without the plastic bag bans and environmental influence, people like the stylish look of a good tote bag. And that's why people like social media influencers and major fashion designers alike can charge a lot for a tote bag.

But, people are a little irritated that one social media lifestyle influencer, Emily Mariko, is selling a large canvas tote bag for more than $100.

Emily Mariko selling a blank tote bag for $120 somehow feels like a bit pic.twitter.com/UayBxCbi2m

— Claire Zagorski, MSc, LP (@clairezagorski) January 30, 2024

The issue seems to stem from the fact that it's, well, pretty much just a plain tote bag. At lest "The Bag" from Marc Jacobs is logo-heavy, so you're paying more for that.

Defenders say that the "Farmers Market Tote" is worth the money, or at least a decent chunk of money, due to the fact that it's actually made with quality material, rather than cheap cotton in China.

Slate's Jenny G. Zhang writes:

For one, the bag, according to the product page, is 100 percent cotton and made in California—not quite SHEIN and Alibaba, although I know that some consumers have trouble telling the difference. I enjoy a good deal as much as the next person, and I’ll cop to having previously made purchases on sites like the staggeringly affordable Temu, but I’m not going to pretend that those steals aren’t produced on the backs of cheap overseas labor. There is a certain level of uncomfortable cognitive dissonance in all of us who participate in any exchange of goods and services for money, but especially in those who praise products only made possible through underpaid—or at least undervalued—invisible labor, while decrying pricier goods produced, hypothetically, more ethically and more expensively. (Whether Mariko’s totes, while made in California, were produced ethically by fairly compensated laborers has not been divulged to the public.)

Good point. Fair point. But still, even Zhang admits that you're mostly paying for the look that Mariko's brand (even without logos) provides.

The reason so many people follow her—more than 12 million of them on TikTok alone—is for her tantalizingly unattainable lifestyle, one set to the cadences of farmers market trips and leisurely meal preps and vacations in Lake Como and Hawaii and Napa. Her totes aren’t made for me or for you—they’re made for the Lululemon-wearing, Erewhon-shopping, green juice–sipping women who are exactly in Mariko’s demographic. And that’s fine—enough people exist in that category that the tote bags have already sold out, seemingly reaffirming the business decision to price and market them that way.

The lesson here for distributors? First off, it's clear that you can't please everyone. The second is that there is obviously a market for quality tote bags with good features and solid construction. The third is that people do sometimes want logos tastefully adorning their bag, which could elevate the brand identity and therefore live up to a higher price point.

Finally, choose a bag that suits the customer, rather than assuming they'll adapt their lifestyle to the product. Mariko's customer base is, as Zhang explained, people who tend to shop at upscale grocery stores and farmers markets, and therefore want a bag that matches that lifestyle aesthetic.

We're not saying you have to only appeal to those sorts of shoppers, but the lesson is to put yourselves in the target recipient's shoes, and imagine what they want, what they want it to look like, and how they want to use it.