A few months ago, I was at a trade show in Europe.
You know the drill.
Hundreds of booths. Thousands of people. And bags everywhere.
Tote bags with logos. Drawstring bags stuffed with flyers. Paper bags with promotional inserts nobody asked for.
By the end of day one, the bins near the exit were overflowing with them.
I’m not exaggerating. I counted. At one bin alone, I saw over thirty branded bags stacked on top of each other. Some still had the booth materials inside.
Thirty brands. Thirty budgets. Thirty design approvals, production runs, and shipping containers.
All in a bin.
That image stuck with me.
Not because I’m in the bag business — though obviously I am.
But because I kept thinking about the people who approved those orders. They weren’t careless. They had goals. They wanted visibility. Brand recall. A good impression.
And instead, they funded landfill.
Here’s what I’ve noticed after fifteen years in manufacturing:
The bags that survive are never the cheapest ones.
They’re the ones that someone looked at and thought, “I could actually use this.”
A proper handle. The right size. Fabric that doesn’t feel like it’ll tear in a week.
It’s not about being expensive. It’s about being useful.
The industry calls it “cost-per-use.” I think of it differently.
I think of it as: did someone take it home?
Because if they took it home, it becomes a grocery bag. A gym bag. A laptop carrier. A daily companion that happens to carry your brand on it.
And if they threw it away, it doesn’t matter how good the logo looked.
Warmly,
Deven
Founder, Bag Studio
