Everything You Need to Know About Business of Eco-Friendly Totes

In recent years, tote bags have become more and more popular among the public due to their simple functionality and ease of use. Therefore, the wholesale business of tote bags has also become a hot business. If you want to engage in the importer, wholesale, or retail business of tote bags, this article can give you more information about tote bags.

1. What is Tote Bags?

A tote bag is a simple bag that has a large opening on the top, and a pair of parallel handles on the side of the opening. Pretty simple, right? People are more and more fond of those simple designs and environmentally friendly materials, that’s why tote bags got so many fans today. More important, it can carry lots of your daily stuff, such as a laptop, books, phone, wallet, grocery food, wine, clothes, and so on. For more tote bags, please refer to here.

2. The History of Tote Bags

The 1900s: Tote means to carry, and it become common.
1944: Totes start popular in the United States, especially for boat tote bags.
The 1950s: The American housewives greatly ushered these tote bags into mainstream society.
The 1960s: Tote bag is a sign of fashion.
Nowadays: Tote bags become personal signs and fashion, or daily needs. These eco-friendly tote bags can be widely in different use, people can print their images and color as personal symbols, the company can print their brand logo for promotions or events, grocery stores or supermarkets can design their own style for the impression market. The best part is all the tote bags from EcoBagreen are made of eco-friendly material, no harm to the environment and our planet.

3. The Material of Tote Bags

The main material for tote bags includes woven polypropylene, Non-Woven Polypropylene, Reusable Material, Recycled Material, Biodegradable Material, Cotton Canvas, and Bamboo.
For your wholesale business of eco-friendly bags, you can learn this post to choose your totes material.

4. How to Make Tote Bags?

It’s quite simple to learn how to make a tote, for a company like EcoBagreen, the hard part is to make an optimized solution to meet customers’ target budget and design needs. Today we are gonna teach you how to make a tote bag by yourself.

[ About Tote Bag Size ]

45cm wide, 28cm high, and 16cm deep.

[ About Tote Bag Material ]

Suitable fabric: Canvas, cotton, and linen (need to be ironed)

Accessories: 2 zippers (1 inner pocket zipper 20cm, 1 main zipper 43cm)

Following the steps, you will get the finished tote bags like the below images.

Prepare to cut the fabric, the dimensions are as follows.

• Top Fabric x 2

• Bottom Fabric x 2

• Outer Pocket Fabric x 1

• Inner Patch Pocket Fabric,

• Lining Fabric Stitching x 2,

• Inner Zipper Pocket Fabric x 1

• Handle x 4

• Lining Fabric x 2

Step 2: The opposite side of the Handle is opposite to the opposite side, and fix it along the 0.3cm edge of the open line.

Step 3: As shown in the figure, sew the handle on the front of the top fabric.

Step 4: Fold the handle in half as shown in the figure and sew and fix it. The handle of the other piece of fabric is also handled in the same way.

Step 5: Fold the long side of the outer pocket in half (the front side is opposite to the front side), and fix it by sewing at 1cm on both sides (opening 1.5cm without sewing)

Step 6: Fold out each opening 1cm.

Step 7: Put the outer pocket on the top piece of the top fabric, and then sew the center 17cm as shown in the figure. Be careful not to sew to the outer pocket on the other side.

Step 8: Press the open line 0.3cm along the opening of the outer pocket.

Step 9: After aligning the other side of the outer pocket with the center of the bottom fabric, press the open stitch at the center of the sewing at 17cm and 0.3cm at the front.

Step 10: Sew the out top fabric and bottom fabric sides at a position 1cm opposite to the front side.

Step 11: Press open lines on the front.

Step 12: After handling the handle on the other side, take the bottom fabric out, the front side is opposite to the front side, stitch it at 1cm, and press the open thread on the front side.

Step 13: Two pieces of top and bottom fabric is opposite to the front side, stitch the position of the red line in the picture.

Step 14: Ironing on both sides of the seam, and sew both sides of the bottom edge.

Step 15: Fold the upper end of the inner pocket 1cm inward and then 2cm inward to press the open thread, and fold the bottom end inward by 0.5cm for ironing.

Step 16: Sew the inner pocket according to the blue line marked in the picture.

Step 17: Mark the position of the zipper on another piece of lining, and draw it according to the picture (length is 20cm, width=zipper width-2cm)

Step 18: According to the zipper position in the picture, cut the drawing line and iron it as shown in the picture.

Step 19: Stick double-sided tape around the zipper opening, and stick the zipper on the double-sided tape to fix the zipper at the position of the zipper buckle.

Step 20: Align the center point of the inner zipper bag fabric (front-down) with the center of the zipper, and paste it under the zipper.

Step 21: Turn to the front and sew a thread under the zipper to fix it.

Step 22: After sewing, turn back to the reverse side, turn down the zipper inner bag cloth, and paste double-sided tape on the reverse side of the zipper.

Step 23: Paste the other side of the zipper inner bag fabric on the back of the zipper.

Step 24: Turn back to the front, and sew the remaining side of the zipper.

Step 25: Turn back to the back of the lining, and sew the left and right sides of the zipped inner pocket.

Step 26: Find the middle point of the lining and the middle point of the zipper, and stick the zipper and the lining together with double-sided tape.

Step 27: Put the zipper patch face down, align it with the lining, and sew along the 1cm seam so that the zipper on one side is sewn. Follow the same method with the other side of the zipper.

Step 28: Stitch along the line drawn, leaving 15cm at the bottom to return to the opening. Follow step 15 to sew both sides of the bottom edge.

Step 29: Put the back of the lining fabric on the outer side of the outer jacket (the front fabric and the lining fabric are facing each other), find 4 alignment points (side seams on both sides, midpoint), and sew a circle along the edge.

Step 30: Turn from the position of the rewind to the front and reshape it, sew a circle of open thread at 0.3cm of the bag opening, and sew the rewind with a hidden needle.

Finished tote bag

5. Weight of the Tote Bag

There are many types of materials used for tote bags, here we only talk about the weight of canvas tote bags.

In EcoBagreen, we generally use 4 oz, 5 oz, 6 oz, 8 oz, 10 oz, 12 oz, 14 oz, 16 oz, and 24 oz weights for tote bags. The hot sales of canvas totes are common use 5 oz for lower quality bags (also known as Cotton totes or Cotton sheeting totes) and 12 oz for durable canvas totes. And customers select heavier weights for fashion tote bags.

6. The Difference between Different Weight Canvas Tote Bags

Above question 5, we know canvas tote bags available many weights. The 5 oz weight totes are the most popular for the grocery store or supermarket shopping, it’s cheap and total replace plastic bags, also eco-friendly material is good for the environment.

The 10 oz canvas tote bags are often used for high-quality fashion shopping, it’s durable to use last many years, and with age makes this heavy-duty tote bag looks even perfect, as it washes and wears well. This weight is very popular for students, office ladies, fashion girls, and eco-friendly people. They are pursuit simple and green life.

7. Regular Tote Bag Wholesale Size

If you are preparing your tote bag wholesale business, the size of the bag definitely is the main information of your order.

In EcoBagreen, there are 3 regular option sizes for eco-friendly tote bags, large, medium, and small.

Small size: The dimensions is 12″Width x 13″Height x 4″Deep. This size is perfect for storing lipstick, books, wallet, and keys.

Medium size: The dimensions is 16″Width x 15″Height x 5″Deep. This size kind of routine tote bag, and more manageable for our casual outings.

Large size: The dimensions is 22″Width x 15″Height x 8″Deep. This large size is most popular for wholesalers, everyone loves oversized bags, it can carry all things in just one bag.

If you are still interested in other things in your tote bag wholesale business that we didn’t mention, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are love to hear from you.