NEW YORK (WPIX/NEXSTAR) — The craze surrounding Trader Joe’s products is back again, this time for their mini insulated tote bags, which dropped on Tuesday. Like their signature mini tote bags that went viral earlier this year, these new bags are only available for a limited time — and are selling for a pretty penny online.
The insulated mini tote bags, available in either hot magenta or cool teal, retail for $3.99. They were set to be available at Trader Joe’s stores nationwide on Tuesday, but online reports show they may have reached shelves even earlier.
In a post by a Trader Joe’s fan account on Instagram, it appears some stores tried to get ahead of the curve, adding a limit of two bags per customer. Those limits can vary by location, Trader Joe’s told Axios.
“I was at Trader Joe’s a few hours ago, and they had them,” one user commented on the post. “I snagged a teal one. The workers were saying that they didn’t know they were coming this weekend, so it was like a surprise launch. So cute!”
Regardless of the limit your store does (or doesn’t) impose on the bags, you may not find any at your closest TJ’s. One video posted to Instagram shows people lining up outside a store, purportedly to snag a tote.
An X user said they, too, waited outside a Trader Joe’s “before the doors opened” to get their own cooler bags. “I’m not getting left out like I did with the [last] mini totes!” they wrote. Another user claimed their Trader Joe’s sold out of the bags within eight minutes of being open for the day.
In a video posted to TikTok on Tuesday, a would-be customer explains that she arrived at a Trader Joe’s 20 minutes before the store opened, only to find a line long enough to keep her from even trying to get a bag.
“No idea there was going to be this many people here. So I think I’m just going to call is a loss, I’m not going to get one,” TikTok user @daybydaydesiree said in the clip. “I’m not even going to stand in line because it just seems like a lot of chaos.”
Some stores were bombarded with clientele in March when Trader Joe’s released a mini tote bag that quickly went viral. One video, seen at the top of this story, showed customers piling around a display of the $2.99 bags, nearly reminiscent of a scene from a Black Friday sale.
Resellers tried to capitalize on the craze, listing them online with exorbitant prices. That included a $999.99 listing on eBay for a four-pack of the tote bags (in case you’re wondering, it’s no longer available).
While Trader Joe’s has spoken out about the reselling of its products — they said in March they would do “all we can to stop the practice” — it isn’t keeping resellers from listing the new insulated bags online.
Like the limited-time tote bags from March, some are looking to resell the mini insulated totes for as much as $100. If you really want to stock up, a set of 10 bags was listed at $499 on eBay as of Tuesday afternoon.
So far, multiple sets of two totes have already sold on eBay, ranging in price from about $25 to $50.
It’s too soon to tell if the mini insulated bags will become the apparent status symbol their predecessors, or the Stanley cups, were earlier this year.
If your Trader Joe’s store has sold out of the limited-edition insulated cooler bags, and you don’t want to pay the marked-up resale prices, have no fear — a spokesperson for the company tells Nexstar they plan to have more available later this summer.
Ashleigh Jackson contributed to this report.
