How Bogg, the mom-approved beach bag, is rebranding itself for year-round appeal

You may or may not own the viral beach tote by Bogg—coveted by suburban moms and spotted on just about every TikTok “beach day” video—but you’ve definitely seen it. The molded, washable bag has become something of a summer status symbol, retailing for around $100 and known for its surprising durability and quirky colorways.

Since going viral during the pandemic, Bogg has grown into a $100 million-a-year business, selling more than 4 million products across 15,000 stores, Amazon, and its own site, and reaching $200 million in “lifetime sales.”

Now, with its new Bougie Quilted Collection, a line inspired by luxury bags and featuring customizable details—the brand hopes to not only maintain its momentum, but elevate its image beyond the quintessential beach tote.

Founder and CEO Kim Vaccarella said she believes the company’s real advantage over luxury is in its accessibility, customization, and durability—“all of those things that, as a mom, I was looking for when I created the bag.”

Vaccarella spoke with Retail Brew about the brand’s suburban-mom appeal, the secret to sustained virality, and how Bogg is navigating economic headwinds.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Why do your bags resonate with suburban moms?

Because I am a suburban mom, or, I’m old for a suburban mom now…But at the time that I conceived the idea, it was what I needed in my life. I would buy all the cute bags, but I’m an obsessive coffee drinker. I was spilling coffee on my bags. My kids were putting their dirty hands on it. I wanted something that was going to be functional, cute, and fun but not cost me a fortune. My husband used to affectionately call it a graveyard of beach bags, because I would buy them, use them once or twice. You can’t wash them in most cases so they’d end up at the bottom of my closet.

I made such connections with my customers and my retailers. I didn’t go the traditional route where I went strictly to retail, to DTC—that’s the general route. I went the opposite direction. I talked to store owners about their customers, and I made sure that the Bogg bag was seen and felt…I wanted to give that opportunity to the customer. We charge a premium for our bag, and I wanted them to see why we were charging a premium for our bag and what’s making it a little more expensive than something else that I can buy.

What is the secret behind the TikTok virality and maintaining steady growth?

We get a lot of organic [traffic]. We do some influencer stuff [but] I didn’t advertise. I had five people building this business in 2023, including myself. [We] had no experience. I came from the commercial real estate lending world, so it’s a completely different thing. But talking so much to the customers and the stores…that’s where I excelled because I do like to build genuine relationships.

I still talk to my stores regularly, and that’s what started the ball rolling. When they trust the founder and they trust the brand; that just really amplifies it. Sometimes when you get too big, you get lost, and then it’s just about the product, and it’s not about the people. I want to be able to build a product that’s going to last a lifetime.

How have tariffs and other economic challenges impacted your brand?

We had 100% YoY growth last year. We came into the first part of 2025 feeling on top of the world, but knowing that something was looming. We took some precautionary steps [and] visited our existing factory in China that’s been our factory for 10 years.

We had already started looking at and meeting some different factories. We went to Sri Lanka, and we also went to Vietnam. We had already set up with a Vietnam factory [which is] producing about 30% of our business right now. We hope to be about 50% in Vietnam by January of this year.

We got in a little bit early and took the steps. That doesn’t mean we lost a tremendous amount of money in 2025 in tariffs. Our big season is coming out of Easter, going into Mother’s Day. It could potentially be ~30% of our sales. We had containers that were in very large tariff brackets that were on the water, and we were looking at options for putting it in one of those warehouses where you can hold, but we needed the product now, so we took the hit and we said, “It’s either we tell our customers we can’t bring in their product and we leave them struggling as well, or we bring in the product knowing that we’re not going to make any money on it, but we’re going to keep our relationships.” We chose to do that.