What happened to eBags?
Aug 2, 2020, 12:13 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 267
What happened to eBags?
Did COVID do them in?
eBags recently discontinued its rewards program, and stopped carrying 3rd party brands. I was on their site today and they are clearing out many of their own brand items. It looks like they will be drastically cutting back on what they offer under their own label now as well.
I tried to find info on this besides the simple note they had on their website a while ago saying they would be transitioning. Anyone know the background?
eBags recently discontinued its rewards program, and stopped carrying 3rd party brands. I was on their site today and they are clearing out many of their own brand items. It looks like they will be drastically cutting back on what they offer under their own label now as well.
I tried to find info on this besides the simple note they had on their website a while ago saying they would be transitioning. Anyone know the background?
Aug 2, 2020, 5:10 pm
#2
Join Date: Jan 2013
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Well I was shopping a week or two ago on their "old site" (due to an email that I had $5 in rewards to use and they were expiring soon) - couldn't find the exact product I wanted so I figured I would come back in a few weeks to see what inventory they brought in.
Low and behold, on Friday I logged on to TopCashBack and saw a whopping 20% CB offer for eBags.com - for that kind of discount I figured I could find a bag that would work!
I logged on to eBags via TCB portal - immediately noticed a new layout (which does happen from time to time on e-commerce sites), but the few things that really caught my attention were:
So my uneducated and mildly informed guess is that there was some sort of corporate change (sold to? merger?) that caused the rewards program to end, site to change style, and Samsonite Brands be the vendor of record w/ Paypal.
Low and behold, on Friday I logged on to TopCashBack and saw a whopping 20% CB offer for eBags.com - for that kind of discount I figured I could find a bag that would work!
I logged on to eBags via TCB portal - immediately noticed a new layout (which does happen from time to time on e-commerce sites), but the few things that really caught my attention were:
- On the main login page for eBags, it notes that prior logins for accounts for the old site would not work and that you had to setup a new account.
- Tried to do that and then it said an account with my email already existed, leading me to believe that they imported the old ones somehom
- After a few rounds of forgot my password runaround, got it to work. My old account info / address book / etc was there.
- Order was placed, used paypal to checkout. Noted the charge was for Samsonite Brands.com - which seems new to me.
- selection of items was very much reduced in terms of number of categories of items and then items within each remaining category.
So my uneducated and mildly informed guess is that there was some sort of corporate change (sold to? merger?) that caused the rewards program to end, site to change style, and Samsonite Brands be the vendor of record w/ Paypal.
Aug 2, 2020, 6:56 pm
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 267
Congrats on the deal. I had some points expire; never got around to using them (not that I need another bag...).
Samsonite bought eBags in 2017 for $110M but seemed to have left it alone at the time (though they seemed to give eBags and Samsonite merchandise prominent placement).
i dont think there was a recent corporate event like another acquisition. It is possible they ran the Samsonite and EBags site separately until recently and decided to shut down the big eBags site and associated infrastructure selling 3rd party merchandise, and are now just selling the eBags merchandise through the Samsonite infrastructure.
I suspect the retail business has been decimated by Coronavirus, and was already under immense pressure from Amazon. But that’s just an educated guess — I have no backup.
Samsonite bought eBags in 2017 for $110M but seemed to have left it alone at the time (though they seemed to give eBags and Samsonite merchandise prominent placement).
i dont think there was a recent corporate event like another acquisition. It is possible they ran the Samsonite and EBags site separately until recently and decided to shut down the big eBags site and associated infrastructure selling 3rd party merchandise, and are now just selling the eBags merchandise through the Samsonite infrastructure.
I suspect the retail business has been decimated by Coronavirus, and was already under immense pressure from Amazon. But that’s just an educated guess — I have no backup.
Aug 3, 2020, 7:40 am
#4
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 4
Came here to say this.. I normally purchase its GC when AMEX offer is available, glad I didn't pull it off this time. I literally bought 2 weeks ago or so things were just normal (and luckily I cleared all my points)
It's been my main source for backpacks, and kid you not, some outdoor clothing as they used to carry Patagonia and Prana, hope it comes back soon.
It's been my main source for backpacks, and kid you not, some outdoor clothing as they used to carry Patagonia and Prana, hope it comes back soon.
Aug 9, 2020, 6:05 pm
#5
Moderator: Travel Safety/Security, Travel Tools, California, Los Angeles; FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Order was placed, used paypal to checkout. Noted the charge was for Samsonite Brands.com - which seems new to me.
***
So my uneducated and mildly informed guess is that there was some sort of corporate change (sold to? merger?) that caused the rewards program to end, site to change style, and Samsonite Brands be the vendor of record w/ Paypal.
***
So my uneducated and mildly informed guess is that there was some sort of corporate change (sold to? merger?) that caused the rewards program to end, site to change style, and Samsonite Brands be the vendor of record w/ Paypal.
Luggage giant Samsonite International S.A. has acquired web-only travel bag retailer eBags Inc. for $105 million in cash.
This is the second major acquisition in a little more than a year for Samsonite, which bought upscale luggage retailer Tumi Inc., No. 393 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide, for $1.8 billion in March 2016.
***
The $105 million acquisition price is 66.2% of eBags’ 2016 online sales, suggesting that eBags was not generating much profit. The 0.66 multiple is slightly lower than the average 0.77 multiple of prior-year sales in recent acquisitions.
***
This is the second major acquisition in a little more than a year for Samsonite, which bought upscale luggage retailer Tumi Inc., No. 393 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide, for $1.8 billion in March 2016.
***
The $105 million acquisition price is 66.2% of eBags’ 2016 online sales, suggesting that eBags was not generating much profit. The 0.66 multiple is slightly lower than the average 0.77 multiple of prior-year sales in recent acquisitions.
***
Aug 10, 2020, 7:35 am
#6
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I had $10 in expiring rewards last month, found a decent medium sized duffel that had been marked down to $16. So $6+shipping. 
Aug 15, 2020, 10:22 pm
#8
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Posts: 844
RIP, eBags. I picked up a new harness for our pooch on sale and used up my rewards $. Still like the ebags packing cubes. Have a few sets and they are handy to use.
Aug 21, 2020, 6:20 am
#9
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Noticed this awhile back as well. It was usually where I picked up my Briggs&Riley pieces. In addition to sometime having them on sale / clearance, there was often 6 to 10 miles per dollar on MileagePlus Shopping.
I guess no more...
I guess no more...
Sep 1, 2020, 10:12 pm
#10
Join Date: Sep 2020
Posts: 1
E-Bags RIP
e-Bags, as we all knew it, shut down their Denver area facility this week. e-Bags has been a very successful company selling over 35 Million suitcases since 1998. While e-Bags worked with over 600 Brand Lines, Samsonite decided they only want to carry their own name-brand products. So this resulted in over 100 people loosing their jobs. Samsonite is not the company that it used to be, it is now a Chinese-owned company. I'm sure the lifetime warranty for e-Bags branded products is now out the window.
Sad time for the e-commerce world!
Sad time for the e-commerce world!
Sep 2, 2020, 10:54 am
#11
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 241
e-Bags, as we all knew it, shut down their Denver area facility this week. e-Bags has been a very successful company selling over 35 Million suitcases since 1998. While e-Bags worked with over 600 Brand Lines, Samsonite decided they only want to carry their own name-brand products. So this resulted in over 100 people loosing their jobs. Samsonite is not the company that it used to be, it is now a Chinese-owned company. I'm sure the lifetime warranty for e-Bags branded products is now out the window.
Sad time for the e-commerce world!
Sad time for the e-commerce world!
Sep 3, 2020, 10:55 am
#12
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e-Bags, as we all knew it, shut down their Denver area facility this week. e-Bags has been a very successful company selling over 35 Million suitcases since 1998. While e-Bags worked with over 600 Brand Lines, Samsonite decided they only want to carry their own name-brand products. So this resulted in over 100 people loosing their jobs. Samsonite is not the company that it used to be, it is now a Chinese-owned company. I'm sure the lifetime warranty for e-Bags branded products is now out the window.
Sad time for the e-commerce world!
Sad time for the e-commerce world!
Their lifetime.
Sep 4, 2020, 6:33 am
#13
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My first travel backpack was an eBags Motherlode. I even bought the Jr version, several of their crew lunch boxes and packing cubes. They were solid purchases. I ventured on to Tom Bihn and more recently to B&R. But, eBags was my first love 
Sep 19, 2021, 3:58 pm
#15
Join Date: Sep 2021
Location: NH
Programs: Global Entry,JetBlue.Delta,BA
Posts: 2
As a follow-on to this, I accidentally discovered that eBags' Connected Luggage Tags, which had a QR code and RFID chip to allow someone to get contact info for you without printing it on a tag, are now just useless hunks of plastic. The URLs for the tags no longer work and the eBags app, which one had used to register the tags, no longer exists. I had about a half dozen of these and had been continuing to use them in the belief that they served as reasonable bag IDs. Not anymore!