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| Joan Sugihara started a company that designs and distributes the reusable Baggu shopping bag, made of rip-stop nylon fabric. |
Joan Sugihara knows it takes awhile to change a habit, even if it’s a relatively easy change to make.
Her Del Mar-based company, Baggu, a designer and distributor of reusable shopping bags, is a business hinged on the habit changes that she and her business-partner daughter, Emily, wanted to see in their lives and the lives of others.
“I knew that in my consumption of plastic bags, I was participating in the pollution of the Pacific Ocean, and it was a New Year’s resolution of sorts to start shopping with reusable bags,” said Sugihara, who had no intention of starting a business when she and her daughter began designing bags.
From December 2006 to March 2007, the mother-daughter duo developed a prototype based on their chosen styles, ordered fabric samples and started sewing with a team of four employees.
Joan Sugihara says that the only alternatives to plastic or paper she’d seen were either too bulky or only partially reusable, so within a few months they would require replacement.
By August, the Sugiharas’ first shipment of bags arrived in a quantity of 36,000, the minimum amount that Baggu can order from its Chinese manufacturer.
The initial investment was around $20,000, according to Emily Sugihara, who says that she and her mother paid for half of the first order upfront and, by taking pre-orders, were able to raise the other half quickly.
“Our focus is still very much on the supply end — figuring out how to run a healthy business and getting the kinks worked out, rather than setting revenue goals,” she said.
Made of rip-stop nylon fabric, the same fabric used in parachutes, a Baggu bag can support up to 25 pounds despite its 2-ounce weight.
A Fast Start
Selling for $8 each, Baggu bags are manufactured in China via a broker in Northern California, and about 220,000 have been sold since the company’s inception, Joan Sugihara says.
Emily Sugihara, who runs Baggu’s New York-based design office, says that a typical order of 120,000 bags costs approximately $170,000, or $1.42 each, for the company to make.
“We distribute to about 100 stores throughout the country, including natural food stores, boutiques, bookstores and museums,” she said.
