Bogg’s Croc-like tote bags are coming to 1,900 Target stores

Its partnership with Target, coupled with the brand’s cult-like following, shows how Bogg bags have become a quasi-status symbol. Bogg’s retail strategy mirrors that of another viral accessory brand, Stanley, which has also inked exclusive deals with big-name retailers, including Target, Starbucks and Olay. Like Stanley’s followers, Bogg’s fans have been known to fork out $90 for not just one tote bag but every new color in the exact same style.

Bogg, which was founded in 2008, is on track to bring $100 million in 2024, up from $54 million last year. Bogg is betting that a limited-edition collaboration with Target will be enough to win the hearts — and wallets — of its ardent fans. In the meantime, Bogg is just trying to keep up with its own success.

“I think in a year’s time that we would do a minimum of $25 million with [Target],” Bogg’s founder Kim Vaccarella said in an interview with Modern Retail.

The Target collaboration includes a limited-edition tote bag that features the superstore’s red-and-white bullseye logo. Shoppers can also buy additional colorways exclusive to Target, like “Beach Hydrangea” and “For Shore White.” The bags are sold in two sizes. The original size, also the largest, retails between $90 to $100. And the mini size costs $60 a pop. 

Bogg and Target have been in touch for about a year, ever since the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based retailer pitched Vaccarella via email about working together. Bogg started out selling wholesale through independent boutiques. But as the company has grown, it has been increasingly available in major retailers like Dillard’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods, too. But Target’s massive retail footprint makes it Bogg’s biggest retail partner to date.

Even though she was over the moon about the opportunity to sell her bags in a big-box retailer like Target, Vaccarella said she was nervous about potentially taking business away from other shops that stock Bogg bags, especially mom-and-pop stores. Like Bogg, Target has a devoted following of its own, so Vaccarella eventually agreed to partner with the retailer, but only if it stocked exclusive products, like the bullseye logo bag. 

“We want everybody to have something a little bit different because the Bogg carrier is a collector,” Vaccarella said. “She likes all the bogs, so give her an opportunity to go into a different store and get a different style of bag.”

Bags to riches

For Vaccarella, Bogg’s Target partnership is something of a rags-to-riches tale. Despite its seemingly overnight success, Bogg is not new. The idea for Bogg was born in 2008 when Vaccarella, a mother of two in New Jersey, noticed a gap in the market for utilitarian bags made for women. The goal was to design a beach tote that was big enough to carry your essentials but also sturdy and washable at the end of the day. In 2009, Vaccarella, who had zero experience in the fashion business and worked full-time at a commercial real estate lender, pitched her ideas to retail buyers in New York. 

“I got a lot of resounding no’s,” Vaccarella said. She fielded criticisms like, ‘It’s too utilitarian’ or ‘They’re too big.’

Fifteen years later, Bogg’s size and utility are precisely why the bags have resonated with American women, especially moms. In 2010, Vaccarella plunged ahead and manufactured the first few hundred Bogg bags on her own, selling them through small, independent shops. Vaccarella said her bags became popular in the Southeast, where the bag’s outdoor functionality fit with the warm climate. Over the years, Bogg grew steadily, raking in $1 million in 2019.

But the brand started to take off during the pandemic thanks to so-called “Peloton moms,” as Vaccarella put it, who bought Bogg bags to store all their gear and posted about their purchases on Facebook. As the Covid-era popularity of Peloton bikes soared, so did Bogg bags. Those same Peloton moms also signed up for TikTok during the pandemic, turbocharging the brand’s online fame even more. It has become trendy on TikTok to post videos of yourself filling up your Bogg bag with everything from Fiji water bottles and snacks to spare clothes and sunscreen.

‘A thing for your things’ 

To Melissa Minkow, director of retail strategy at digital consultancy firm CI&T, Bogg totes aren’t just bags. They’re a gateway to an entire lifestyle that revolves around consumption. Indeed, Bogg has churned out an entire product lineup that goes far beyond tote bags. The brand now makes decorative knick-knacks that pop into the holes of the bag. Shoppers can buy organizational dividers in every color and pattern imaginable.

Bogg’s popularity has also fueled an entire cottage industry of accessories, like customizable name tags, that can be found on third-party marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon. Invariably, Bogg’s success has inspired copycats, too, including a knock-off ironically once sold at Target but is now out of stock.

Minkow compared Bogg to the likes of Stanley, another wildly popular utilitarian product that has also become an accessories brand. (Funnily enough, Bogg even sells a holder that fits a Stanley cup.) Similarly, Crocs, which inspired the material for the Bogg bag, lets its customers decorate their shoes with pop-in charms.

“It’s a thing for your things,” Minkow said. “You can attach all these build-ons and tchotchkes to these products, so there ends up being this whole consumerist culture around the item that’s so much more than just the item.” 

Looking ahead, Vaccarella hopes to eventually develop accessories exclusively for Target.

“We would love to add Target-exclusive accessories, especially to match up with some of the lineup that they have,” Vaccarella said. “We want to be the one-stop solution for all things Bogg.”