In 2020, when the pandemic stopped all non-essential travel, Ami and Jason Richter they had to think fast. They ran a booming business called place which sold travel bags and fun accessories and had a growing legion of fans, among them the presenter Oprah .
But as travel bans took effect, families succumbed to lockdowns and working from home quickly became the norm, shopping for backpacks and shoulder bags was the furthest thing from people’s minds.
It was at this point that Ami relied on a familiar approach to running the company through uncertainty.
“I’ve always believed in keeping our eyes ahead and continually reinventing our products to meet new situations in our customers’ lives,” she said.
When the husband-and-wife team co-founded Lug in 2005, their idea was to create a line of highly functional and fun quilted bags and accessories to keep people organized on the go. They launched the company that year with just three products – luggage tags, luggage handles and wallets, adding more and more items as the company grew.
Lug’s colorful bags feature multiple pockets and compartments to store a variety of everyday essentials such as phones, laptops, cosmetics, water bottles, wallets, keys and clothing. By early 2020, its product portfolio had expanded to over 150 different items, including gym bags, laptop bags, backpacks, and suitcases.
But as travel has plummeted amid the pandemic, sales of suitcases and all travel-related items have been decimated. Ami had to find a way to keep Lug bags relevant to a completely changed market. It did this by adapting bag designs to suit the changing lifestyles of pandemic-era consumers.
“Basically, we analyze the rapidly changing environment and adapt our products to it,” Jason said.
For example, Ami added washable pockets made of vinyl-like material to the new designs so customers could easily sanitize bags and find face coverings, as well as extra pockets to store hand sanitizer.
She said most Lug bags now have clear pockets that can be cleaned “where it makes design sense.” They also added pen holder pockets so people have their own pens.
Lug already had an advantage entering the pandemic with its mostly direct-to-consumer sales model. In 2015, the brand joined QVC, a free-to-air television channel specializing in shopping, a move that expanded its market reach to more than 500,000 new customers, Jason said.
In her first QVC appearance on July 24, 2015, Ami introduced a Lug bag called the “Puddle Jumper”, a backpack with multiple inside and outside zipper pockets. It sold out in two minutes.
“While brick-and-mortar stores and malls closed, being on QVC kept us moving,” Jason said. The business’ sales have increased during the pandemic and continue to grow by 15% to 20% year on year, he added.
“At some point, road travel came back,” Ami said. “Families were visiting their parents, their grandparents and our bags were selling.”
Creating a Lug Lifestyle
To date, the company says it has sold over five million products through QVC alone, and over 15 million products overall since it was created. That’s a long way from its humble beginnings.
Ami and Jason met in 2004 at a trade show in Las Vegas. She had a small booth next to it, where she displayed a collection of urban laptop bags and other products. He was presenting a line of t-shirts.
They fell in love and spent the next few months visiting each other in Toronto and Dallas. The long journey between the two cities inspired Lug’s idea.
“We really wanted to bring bright, happy colors to the travel space because everything looked really black and brown and boring,” said Ami, who identified Lug’s top customers as women aged 40 and over with active, busy lives who enjoy be organized.
They started the company with $30,000 they had saved and invested the profits back into the business. The Richters said they have not received any outside funding since then.
“We depleted our bank accounts and maxed out our credit cards for gas for our road trips,” Ami said. “We were also our own salespeople and knocked on many doors to introduce Lug.”
The turning point came in 2011, when the brand was picked up by a Canadian home shopping television channel. The QVC partnership followed two years later.
In October 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Ami and Jason launched a daily live online shopping program called Lug Live, hosted by superfans of the brand. It has six presenters who showcase a curated collection of Lug products and discuss how they fit into their everyday lives.
Ami’s next idea hints at her vision of Lug becoming a lifestyle brand beyond bags.
In October, the company will introduce Lug sleepwear and loungewear – at QVC, of course. “We are fun. Our customers already love matching our bags to what they’re wearing,” she said. “Now they can dress head to toe in one of our prints.”
Source: CNN Brasil
