On Wednesday, October 8, a fashion drop drew Black Friday–size crowds outside storefronts nationwide. Shoppers waited patiently—some caught in the rain, some arriving hours before stores opened to be one of the first people to buy. But they weren’t seeking a limited-edition Glossier sweatshirt or a Kylie Jenner lip kit. They were at Trader Joe’s.
By Thursday, October 9, some locations had sold out of the Halloween mini tote bags, available in black, orange, purple, and a multicolored option. In Manhattan, the Chelsea Trader Joe’s—situated on the cusp of a trendy residential neighborhood and the city’s fashion district—displayed ads for the totes near empty cardboard bins that had once held the loot. A tiny tote had been shoved behind dog treats in one aisle; after I put it in my cart, another shopper offered to pay me $20 to give them the $2.99 bag.
Trader Joe’s launched reusable canvas shopping bags in 1977, but it wasn’t until much more recently that they became a status item. The store started selling the mini version in February 2024, and a spring-themed series in pastels released this past April reportedly sold out within hours. The petite bags have been deemed collector’s items and resold on eBay for more than $100. On TikTok, Lucy Kigathi documented her own “insane” journey at a Trader Joe’s in Katy, TX, when the pastel totes dropped in April. “If you got one, you almost got a part of social media history that you’ll live to show and tell one day. It’s a documented feeling, a trend that you just had to be there to experience,” Kigathi says in an email. “You throw away any logic of why there’s a line for mini totes and you just want to be in the trend, whatever it may be.”
These tiny totes are almost akin to a Birkin, at least in terms of return on investment. It’s no wonder that certain Trader Joe’s locations have instated limits on how many bags customers can buy.
Why are they such a big deal? Maybe because they’re teeny—so little it’s difficult to actually, you know, put many groceries in them. “When it comes to our reusable bags, our customers have made themselves abundantly clear: The smaller the tote, the bigger the sensation!” the official Trader Joe’s website says in a listing for the Trick-or-Treat Mini Canvas Totes. (Shoppers can’t actually buy the 13-by-11-by-6-inch vessels there; they can only add them to a wishlist.) Or maybe it’s that they manage to hit a certain capitalist sweet spot. “The Trader Joe’s mini tote bag is really a perfect storm of internet culture meets everyday consumerism,” Social Currency podcast host Sammi Tannor Cohen tells Vanity Fair. “It taps into the psychology of scarcity—something familiar suddenly feels exclusive. When you pair that with the Trader Joe’s brand, which has this cult-like accessibility and nostalgic Americana aesthetic, it becomes irresistible online.”
