Will you spend $50,000 on a Dealer Joe’s tote bag?

Dealer Joe’s totes – a facet quest product turned standing image

Hey trendsetters,

By now, you’ve in all probability run into somebody right here in Manila holding a Dealer Joe’s tote bag underneath their arm. The plain lack of Dealer Joe’s within the Philippines apart, that is such an attention-grabbing pattern as a result of one thing so mundane and abnormal has been hyped a lot that it’s change into a worldwide phenomenon — and it’s not even the chain’s fundamental product.

The tote baggage are simply Dealer Joe’s facet quest merchandise — merch meant to make you are taking house bottles of gourmand cacio e pepe sauce or packs of ready-to-eat soup dumplings. But we dwell at a time when this $3 bag supposedly lists as much as $50,000 on eBay (that’s virtually P3 million!) and has change into a trendy standing image. So on this version of Pattern Intel, we’re looking at how these totes slap and why Filipinos are consuming them up.

The tote craze

Regardless of being solely out there in choose places within the US, individuals from London, Berlin, Tokyo, and Manila are looking for these baggage for a number of causes. For one factor, the Dealer Joe’s tote baggage are constructed nicely — sturdy, roomy, and trendy.

Holding one underneath your arm additionally exhibits you’ve been to the US or know somebody who has. Proudly owning this tote bag means you’re a part of an “IYKYK” membership that’s unique solely to people who find themselves accustomed to Dealer Joe’s quirky and anti-mainstream branding.

The bag’s world recognition was initially a sluggish burn. Dealer Joe’s began creating reusable tote baggage within the ’70s, and its shift from being a sensible grocery purchasing companion to a trendy icon began someday in 2024 as a part of Japan’s tackle “America-core” vogue. Search curiosity for Dealer Joe’s totes considerably rose globally between 2024 and 2025. And in 2025, its virality was in full swing, with consumers flocking to tote bag bins with every launch.

And this isn’t nearly Dealer Joe’s totes. Model facet quests gaining reputation isn’t a brand new phenomenon — suppose IKEA and The New Yorker tote baggage. They’re a part of a much bigger story of how merch objects change into cultural anchors that win loyalty from their communities past their core merchandise. Starbucks planners and bear cups, anybody?

Promoting merch has change into a preferred method for a model to narrate to its clients on a extra private degree. And aside from merely slapping on a brand on a bit of bag or clothes, some manufacturers take it up a notch by designing cool and inventive merch.

Distinctive wearable merch as a badge of coolness

Eating places designing artistic merch that folks really take pleasure in carrying, as BrandRap content material producer Jelou Galang writes, is an indication that folks’s relationships “not begins with the menu and ends with the invoice.” Michelin-recognized Kodawari has Magic Lady-themed merch, Better of Luck has limited-edition caps and shirts, La Chinesca has its personal line, and even Max’s Restaurant launched a particular jacket assortment.

🔗 See who else is making merch right here

And sure, that is precisely the place I plug Rappler’s personal merch. We’ve carried out a number of merch objects over time, some unique to occasions we maintain on floor. There’s additionally Rappler’s Be The Good shirts, which had been made to encourage individuals to carry braveness, hope, and resolve in making the world a greater place.

Our newest one is in collaboration with Linya Linya the place we uphold the significance of speaking about good governance and why we deserve it.

What units Dealer Joe’s tote baggage aside from all of the merch listed above is that we have now entry to those eating places, and even IKEA, The New Yorker, and Starbucks. A Dealer Joe’s opening within the Philippines is nowhere in sight, but we Filipinos eat this pattern up.

Having fun with the pattern

For one factor, as a chronically on-line inhabitants, we’re by no means late in becoming a member of a pattern. As quickly as one thing attention-grabbing hits our algorithm, we’re fast to study extra and hop on what’s uso.

It’s additionally in our nature to convey a little bit of a spot we visited house as pasalubong, which is why OFWs convey again canned corned beef, cleaning soap and shampoo, snacks, and typically even multivitamins. So, Dealer Joe’s tote baggage changing into a brand new addition to balikbayan packing containers isn’t so shocking. They’re low cost (in case you purchase straight), trendy, and already one thing we Filipinos love to make use of.

Filipinos have been utilizing reusable totes within the type of bayongs since pre-colonial occasions. Its sensible type issue is acquainted and broadly embraced. And I, for one, will assist reusable baggage over single-use packaging any day.

You received’t discover an official Dealer Joe’s tote bag vendor wherever exterior the US, so if you wish to get your palms on one, you’ll must be artistic. Or if all this tote speak has acquired you wanting the bag and never the model, we’ve rounded up among the totes we within the BrandRap group like to make use of.

Employees picks: Totes we totes love

“Tote baggage would possibly simply be one of the democratic objects in anybody’s closet,” writes BrandRap content material producer Anica Borromeo on this piece. She explains that nearly everybody owns a tote bag no matter finances and magnificence, and that they’re used each for sensible functions and expressing one’s id. For her, tote baggage are easy objects that inform about an individual’s pursuits, probably greater than different equipment do. So she requested the group what tote baggage we like to make use of and what it tells about our personalities.

🔗 Learn our totes picks right here

A present of assist

Past hopping on a pattern and lurking for restricted version drops, donning a illustration of who we assist is a method for us to acknowledge one another once we’re out on the streets. Carrying merch is a badge of coolness equal to a slight nod we give once we lock eyes with somebody acquainted.

Dealer Joe’s totes present us that baggage aren’t only for carrying issues — they carry id. And in case you’re prepared to hop on the Dealer Joe’s tote bag pattern, I hope you contemplate supporting one which hits nearer to house, too.

Till the following scroll,

Julian Cirineo
BrandRap Editor

– Rappler.com