The Power of Retail

It’s not just about who has the hottest clothes this season, but also about who has the hottest shopping bag! The designers at Saks Fifth Avenue wanted to create “a piece of modern art” and so hired a famous graphic artist to make their shopping bag. Bergdorf Goodman’s selection process took over nine months, and Lord & Taylor selected their bag from one of five prototypes and even went to Korea to check on its manufacture.

While this holiday season might not have the ‘it’ item to have as yet, shopping bags could be the reason for some consumers to decide where to shop. These bags are used for several months, so retailers are going all out in having a one-of-a-kind shopping bag. Consumers carrying store shopping bags are after all, walking advertisements for the store for several months for purposes as varied as carrying lunch to the office and laundry to the cleaners.

These shopping bags are a world apart from the thin plastic shopping bags, and come in an entire range of materials and handles. The heavier and sleeker the material, the better the bag. Once the territory of only the luxury brands, luxe shopping bags are now trickling down to mass market brands. The “reusability” of these shopping bags is what has created this change in the minds of marketers.

Chains are scrambling to move up the bag hierarchy. A year ago, employees at Lord & Taylor decided that their bags had become a liability. “It was the thinnest, most inexpensively constructed bag you could offer — a true throwaway bag,” said the chief executive, Jane Elfers.

So the retailer asked David Lipman, a marketing executive, to help design a new bag. Over six months, Mr. Lipman and his staff spared no expense. They eventually settled on a rich, white canvaslike paper — Mr. Lipman would disclose no further details — and thick, synthetic handles.