If you’ve recently been to the beach, or maybe a kids’ baseball or soccer game, you’ve likely seen a Bogg Bag. Known (and loved) for its functionality, durability, and fun color and pattern combinations, the Bogg Bag has become the ultimate sidekick for many suburban moms nationwide.
On Amazon alone, the bag has garnered more than 5,000 five-star reviews and was named the best beach bag and tote by Travel + Leisure and Good Morning America. Now, Bogg Founder and CEO Kim Vaccarella is bringing the bag to even more consumers thanks to a new partnership with Target.
Starting in early December, Bogg Bags will be available in 1,900 stores nationwide, including a limited-edition Bullseye Bogg Bag and two additional colorways exclusive to the retailer: Beach Hydrangea and For Shore White. Vaccarella is no stranger to retail — Bogg has wholesale partnerships with Dick’s Sporting Goods and Bass Pro Shops, among others — and she has mastered a model in which the brand develops exclusive designs tailored to each partner’s shopper base. However, this latest expansion has kickstarted a new growth trajectory for the business, which started in 2008.
In an interview with Retail TouchPoints, Vaccarella shared how she started and shaped the Bogg business into what it is today, and what is in the pipeline for 2025 and beyond.
Retail TouchPoints (RTP): Your idea has made Bogg one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 5000 fastest-growing privately held companies in America. What initially inspired you to come up with the Bogg Bag?
Kim Vaccarella: Our family has a house in Ortley Beach, N.J., so we spend every summer there. And when you go to the Jersey Shore, it’s an all-day affair: you pack up at 7 a.m., claim your real estate and then you’re there until 5 p.m. We always carried tons of stuff, especially because my kids were active, and we would bring sports stuff too. I just couldn’t find a bag that really met my needs. My kids always went into my canvas or straw bag — something that was super cute—and I would have to buy a new one each year. My husband would joke that I had a graveyard of beach bags because I would spill coffee on them, my kids would get their dirty hands on them. Whatever the case was, they would be filled with sand.
I was inspired by the shoes on the beach, which were increasingly made with ethylene-vinyl acetate. I thought that would make the perfect material for a beach bag, because it was washable, and the material was easy to work with. It gets this softness when it’s in high heat, but it doesn’t get too hot to the touch. The idea was that we need a utilitarian bag — something you can go in and out of all day without worrying about the sides collapsing in or things falling out. I scoured the internet and couldn’t find anything like it, and decided to draw it out on a piece of paper.
RTP: How did you ultimately turn that drawing into a tangible product?
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Vaccarella: I did secure some patents, and once I did that, I started hitting the ground and [having meetings with] people who worked in either the handbag business or in retail. All I heard was that nobody would ever need more than one bag. That it was too big, too utilitarian and too masculine. But I just stuck with the idea and decided to make it myself. I started the manufacturing process and developed an initial sample, which was the coolest thing to see. The bag was a little heavier then, and there were some other elements that we’ve polished over the years.
RTP: EY named you one of its Entrepreneurs of the Year in 2023, but did you ever have moments when you felt out of your depth?
Vaccarella: We started selling them at a local store in my town, and then we brought in 600 additional bags, and then a whole 45-foot container. My heart sank, because although the color was great and the functionality of the bag was fantastic, they had these black streaks on them, so I knew I couldn’t sell them.
It was around the time Hurricane Sandy hit the Jersey Shore, so we decided to donate the bags to people as they returned to their homes on the island and get groups involved for donations. Bogg Bag was the vehicle for them to carry their gloves, goggles, garbage bags and all other materials. They were helpful to the people. We started getting messages from people on Facebook after this, asking where they could get them. This was the only bright spot at an otherwise dismal time. I lost a bunch of money, but I won’t make that mistake again.
RTP: How did you move on and learn from that experience?
Vaccarella: I went out to China and realized the factory I was working with couldn’t scale or grow with me. I found a new factory in 2015, and they really understood my vision. We started doing trade shows and focused on wholesale.
I also was doing all our social media, posting about every store that wanted to carry Bogg Bag, and sharing the best places for people to get them. I started building those connections, and we were on this journey, building Bogg Bag together. In fact, I’m still really good friends with the people who work at the stores that sell us. I visit them, and we text about what’s hot in the market, what new colorways they’re seeing.
We increased sales little by little from 2015 to 2018, and the demand was too much, so it was too much for me and my one employee. We got right over $1 million,and it allowed me to hire two more people through 2022.
RTP: How did COVID affect your operations?
Vaccarella: We were technically in manufacturing, so we were able to stay open. And we were very focused on finding ways to work with our wholesale partners, getting them bags for curbside pickup. We also saw a lot of demand among teachers and nurses because of the antimicrobial material. Then, we saw the Peloton moms picking up our bags and we ended up going viral with them.
Ultimately, coming out of COVID, we had a two-year backlog because it was very difficult to get product, but the orders also kept coming from our stores. We couldn’t meet the demand, so we didn’t take on any new retailers until we could keep up. We’ve more than doubled our sales since then, and it’s just been a dream. We’ve brought in some partners who have been in the fashion industry to help with the infrastructure, which we desperately needed. We didn’t have an ERP system or any customer service systems; we were just running on Shopify and hoping for the best.
RTP: And now you’re in 1,900 Target stores! What does this partnership mean for the state of and future of the business?
Vaccarella: Bogg has become a viral sensation over the years, and landing a partnership with an iconic company like Target is a testament to our growth. The partnership perfectly aligns with Bogg’s mission of delivering fashionable, functional bags for every lifestyle. This is just the beginning!
RTP: Have you invested in paid marketing and advertising to grow the brand, or would you attribute most of the Bogg Bag’s success to organic community building?
Vaccarella: Organic social has been key. The team shows the Bogg Bag in different ways all the time, which is cool to see. And then they’re sharing that with their friends, and it just keeps growing. We’ve had so many TikTok videos go viral, and some of them aren’t even ours. There are other people posting videos that have garnered up to 30 million views. People just keep talking about the bag so much that it’s gone on everyone’s feed. The cycle of sharing just keeps going round and round. But we are looking at advertising in a positive light going forward. Before now, it just wasn’t something we did because it was easier to take the free and organic path.
People especially like videos that show how other people pack their bags, so we’re really going overboard with accessories, showing how they can use packing cubes and other things to organize. We want to be that one-stop solution for all things organization.
RTP: Bogg Bags are obviously a hit with on-the-go moms. How are you thinking about expanding to new audiences and demographics?
Vaccarella: From a marketing standpoint, we’re trying to let other people know that we rally behind them, like teachers and nurses. We’re doing specific campaigns and promotions for these groups, even though our products aren’t discounted often. Every once in a while, we also try to remind people that there are different ways to use their bag, and how they can use it for gift giving. For example, this is a great bag for a gardener.
Finally, we’ve also created something for Gen Z that’s coming out in the spring. We’re going to call it Bogg Bold, so there’s going to be a focus on pops of color, which is popular with that audience. There’s going to be a mixture of different colors, and we’re playing with some fun elements to speak to that crowd.
RTP: You’ve gone through quite a journey from when you started the business in 2008. What lessons would you share with fellow founders and even C-level leaders?
Vaccarella: It’s all about being slow and steady. I know a lot of people who try and go super fast, and they either get burnt out or make mistakes that way. It also takes a special breed [of person] to start a business, so mentorship is big. I see some younger people coming out that have been on Shark Tank or something, and when they go faster than they can handle, it always ends up in disaster. Learn from those examples and talk to people. Most of all, don’t be afraid to ask for help, because it’s easy to get used to doing things for yourself. But there are people who can help, and they can end up being great assets too.
RTP: What’s next in terms of further retail expansion and brand growth?
Vaccarella: It’s all about our partners. Recognizing that each store is different and unique, the focus is always on finding ways to make the shopping experience for their customers the best it can be. We’re paying close attention to what a particular partner is passionate about, or a color or theme they are focused on. Our creative team then comes up with the perfect pairing to wow them and their customers. The beauty of this is that the Bogg lover can find something special in each of the stores they visit, kind of like, well, an Easter egg hunt!
