$3 Trader Joe's tote bags resell for more than $1,500 | Hacker News Reader

$3 Trader Joe's tote bags resell for more than $1,500

qz.com

25 pointsgeox24 comments

I never buy into artificial scarcity when the product can be mass produced. If you really want it, just wait for the trend to die out

Trader Joe’s doesn’t make anything themselves, they buy basically everything from other companies who brand it for them.

As a result they often have products that only exist for a short time before they become unavailable.

Are there any well documented cases of the bags selling for these prices?

Always the way with these, makes you wonder if the crazy expensive ebay listings (and maybe even some sales) are part of the marketing campaign.

Highest I could find was $250 for 4.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=trader+joes+mini+tote&_...

I feel like this shows up in any news article about resale markups of trendy merch - the highest-price listing gets the headline, regardless of if it ever sells. I get that these soft-news articles are more about driving traffic to the site than quality reporting, but I'm still surprised (and annoyed!) that these easily disprovable eye-grabbers are omnipresent in this class of story.

Edit: further example - come on, man https://www.delish.com/food-news/a64457108/trader-joes-mini-...

One person working on the campaign puts up the listing, and another "buys" it on eBay etc.

Then it's technically somewhat true-ish that "one sold at that price".

Original source: A Frenzy at Trader Joe’s: ‘Everyone’s Here for the Tote Bags’ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/business/trader-joes-tote...

https://archive.is/4vQdu

Looks like actual recent sales on eBay are between $15-20 shipped. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=trader+joe%27s+bag&_sac...

I was wondering why these were so prominently displayed at my local store. Now I know! They're too small for me, like to shop less often and stock up when I do, and I never imagined a use besides as a shopping bag.

Fashions and trends really are unpredictable.

Nothing in either article about what is driving so much demand for these bags. It just seems circular: they're selling like crazy because they are scarce and they are scarce because they're selling like crazy.

Yeah the article is pretty bad. It could’ve been one alinea

They are resold in Korea for insane prices. No explanation why they are so coveted over there but they are. I have one but no desire to sell it - I just like it.

FYI, it's about tiny bags. Large bags are everywhere.

The world seems to be chock-full of bags of every conceivable size.

I am genuinely curious how demand for such things spike up. Is it social media? Influenced by someone etc?

I am not on SM, and I really cannot even imagine the peer?-pressure that drives normal, sane and reasonable people living in modern society to go after something so silly and be willing to part so much money for it.

I understand how it works with designer bags and watches etc where it's a signal for social status. But this bag? Come on.

Anyone know why? Or is it just that there is a positive feedback loop here of people wanting to buy this bag only to resell it for a huge return, and that causes the prices to shoot up. When really nobody actually wants to buy this bag to use? Sounds like a group-think ponzi scheme.

Psychoanalysts need to study this even if it is already in the DSM.

Not everyone values money the same, and not all money is valued the same even by the same person. I know that personally I value money below a certain level of wealth much, much more than I value money over that level of wealth. That level and the degree of difference in how money is valued above and below it will vary from person to person.

It’s the trader joes marketing team.

Why? This kind of crap is pretty common. Look at the madness surrounding sneakers, the market is so nuts that dedicated crews target freight trains specifically for looting the sneakers [1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/25/california-a...

cmon. it's trivial to see how much things actually sell for versus what they're listed for

A $15,400 value!

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