E-Commerce’s Brand-New Bag

Over the past decade, few places have been more fashionable than Japan, and new e-commerce venture Little Black Bag thinks the whole world will embrace the Japanese shopping custom of fukubukuro.

The word is translated as “lucky bags,” and these bags contain everything from toys to food to fashion, typically at a discounted price. Retailers all over Japan sell fukubukuro on New Year’s Eve, but on Jan. 21, the concept bowed online at new e-commerce site Little Black Bag. The e-commerce venture, with offices in Los Angeles and New York City, promised to mix the social frenzy of Facebook and Twitter with the skyrocketing popularity of e-commerce, said Dan Murillo, Little Black Bag’s co-founder and chief executive.

The Little Black Bag experience starts with a single member, who creates a profile of the products she prefers. The e-commerce site’s demographic is fashion-obsessed women ages 22 to 40. Monthly memberships are $49.95, and single bags cost $59.95. The company’s merchandisers will assemble bags of goodies.

Members have the choice to trade online the contents of the bags with other members. The time allotted for the trade is a week. Site management also will send email blasts to members asking whether they want to participate in trades. When trading is done, Little Black Bag will send individual members their bags.

The goodies in the black bag include fashion brands Betsey Johnson, BCBGeneration and Z Spoke by Zac Posen. Little Black Bag received $2.7 million in financing from venture capital firms GRP Partners, based in Los Angeles, and DCM, which has offices in Menlo Park, Calif.; Tokyo; and Beijing.—Andrew Asch