An Off-The-Beaten-Path Approach To Selling Bags

The internal frame backpack — beloved by students, hikers and itinerant types all over the world — first entered the market in its modern form in 1967 when it was introduced to the world by its inventor, Greg Lowe. In the intervening 52 years, the product has changed an awful lot and any number of innovators have sought to set their stamp on it.

Among the most recent are Fred Perrotta and Jeremy Michael Cohen, founders of Tortuga, a firm that specializes in selling high-end day backpacks and travel duffels online and direct to consumer (DTC).

Like most founders, the duo came up with the idea for the firm in trying to solve their own problem — they were backpacking in Europe and quickly discovered most of their luggage wasn’t up to the task.

“If you’ve tried dragging a suitcase with cheap plastic wheels over the cobblestone streets of Paris, you know why rolling luggage doesn’t work in a city,” Tortuga noted in an email. “Cylinder-shaped packs for ‘backpackers’ aren’t much better. Since you pack them from the top, like a garbage bag, they leave your stuff a jumbled mess. They’re also too big to be carried onto a plane, so you’re stuck with checked bag fees, the hassle of baggage claim, and the stress of lost luggage.”

They decided that if they couldn’t buy the bag they wanted, they would build it themselves. Perrotta left his job at Google and Cohen, a film student at the time, decided to add entrepreneur to his list career ambitions list (though he is reportedly  still a filmmaker).

Tortuga bags were created as multi-compartmental spaces designed around organization, ease of use and appealing visual style. And, according to travel blogger views over the 18 months, it seems the brand has been successful in that regard as Indie Traveller, Never Ending Voyage and Pack Hacker have all given the brand rave reviews. The firm’s best-known product, the Setout backpack, won Best Carry-On in 2018 by Carryology, for its design that packs like a suitcase, but carries like a backpack.

That award-winning bag, according the company, can now be purchased made out of recycled plastic instead of its traditional sailcloth, as part of the firm’s push to “give new life to old trash.”

What makes Tortuga somewhat unusual, however, is that it has no office anyplace — 100 percent of the staff works remotely.

“We are a small team of passionate travelers. Living on your terms is not a one-size-fits-all concept, and we incorporate our shared philosophy very differently,” said Perrotta, who is the firm’s CEO. He noted that as a brand for travelers always on the go it is actually important for the team at Tortuga to live the lifestyle they build products for.

It’s an approach that means the firm’s attempt to build name and brand recognition differs quite sharply form its peers in the DTC retail game. Tortuga, unlike many of its fellows, makes very little use of direct-response ads on Google and Facebook. Instead, it focuses on a longtailed content-based approach centered on its own site. That means its product pages are longer and more detailed, and the blog is hyper-focused on the niche market it services. It is aimed at the kind of common concerns that their shoppers have — solving travel problems or packing questions.

That was an approach borne of necessity for the brand, as the product is meant to be used for a lifetime, meaning in some sense every sale has to be a profitable sale for the company, and direct-response ads were an expense that ultimately the business couldn’t support.

By creating an environment where its target customers are likely to hang out, and by consistently offering up a range of information those customers need, Tortuga’s growth has been slower, but it’s been sustainable — and has happened in a way that has built buzz and ultimately driven more consumers to that digital hub.

It’s a different strategy and reminiscent of an older form of eCommerce marketing. But then, in many ways Tortuga is a very different type of firm.