Bag Works: Turning an Everyday Purchase Into a Business

Maker Market result

Third place in sales

Project type

Household essentials delivery offer

Customer need

Convenient access to repeat-purchase household bags

Product assortment

Compostable, garbage and recycling bags

Offer

Annual packages and household bundles

Advertised starting price

$18

Business model

Product sales supported by local delivery

Sales mechanism

Market-facing sell sheet and QR-based call to action

Build Week students begin by interviewing parents and peers.

They ask about repeated frustrations, household routines and products people already spend money on. The purpose is to find an opportunity grounded in existing behaviour rather than inventing a need that may not exist.

Household bags leave a clear spending trail.

Families buy them repeatedly. Different bins require different sizes. Compost, garbage and recycling create separate product needs. Running out creates inconvenience, but the purchase itself receives very little attention.

Bag Works treated that ordinary pattern as a product-development opportunity.

The central question became:

Could a local student make an unavoidable household purchase easier to plan and buy?

The project did not depend on convincing households to adopt an unfamiliar category. It asked whether customers would change where and how they bought something they already needed.

That approach connects to design thinking and human factor research and market research that follows the money and the problems: students look for behaviour that already exists before they choose what to build.

Bag Works required more than the observation that every household uses bags.

The student had to understand the category:

• Which sizes do households buy?
• How many bags are included in each package?
• How frequently are different bags replaced?
• What do major retailers charge?
• Which products belong together?
• How much inventory would a household need for a year?
• Would customers prefer individual products or bundles?

The market research compared existing products, package sizes, unit quantities and retail prices.

That information helped turn “sell garbage bags” into a defined product assortment covering compostable, garbage and recycling needs.

Bag Works was not supported by a single selling price.

The student built a business case connecting the product assortment to household usage, annual quantities, cost of goods, retail prices and expected product mix.

The model then tested what could happen if the offer reached different shares of the target community.

Students could compare:

• orders;
• revenue;
• cost of goods sold;
• gross profit;
• gross margin;
• operating expenses;
• net profit;
• and net margin.

This made the consequences of each decision visible.

A lower price could make the offer more attractive but reduce the margin. A larger annual package could increase revenue but also require more inventory. A bundle could make buying easier while changing the cost and profit of the order.

The business case helped determine what the student should offer, how it should be priced and whether the numbers could work.

Bag Works also introduced students to recurring demand. Unlike a novelty product bought once, household bags must be replaced. That creates the possibility of repeat purchasing—but only if the price, assortment and delivery experience give customers a reason to return.

The work connects to financial literacy for young entrepreneurs: students learn how pricing, costs, margins and demand scenarios change the shape of a product offer.

Customers do not buy a spreadsheet.

Bag Works had to turn the research and financial model into a clear reason to purchase.

The market-facing sell sheet led with a recognizable truth:

You already buy garbage bags from Walmart and Costco. This time, buy them from a student.

It then made the offer concrete:

Get a year’s supply, delivered. Starting at $18.

The message worked because it answered the essential customer questions:

• What is being sold?
• Why would I change where I buy it?
• What makes the offer convenient?
• What does it cost?
• What should I do next?

The QR-based call to action gave customers a direct next step.

The sell sheet was the customer-facing expression of the market research and business case underneath it.

At Maker Market, every visitor had cash and several student projects competed for each purchase.

Bag Works finished third in sales.

The result showed that an ordinary household product could compete with more visually novel student projects when the offer connected the product to convenience, local delivery and a clear reason to buy from a student.

It also gave the student better questions for the next version:

• Which bag sizes attracted the most demand?
• Did customers prefer individual packages or bundles?
• Was a year’s supply easy to understand?
• Which price points produced the strongest response?
• How much did delivery add to the cost of each order?
• Would quarterly delivery be more practical than one annual shipment?
• Which customers would be most likely to purchase again?

Third place was not separate from the learning. It was the result of connecting household research, product economics and a direct customer offer.

Bag Works demonstrates that a student project does not need to begin with a futuristic invention.

It can begin by noticing where money already goes.

The student identified a repeat household purchase, studied the existing category, developed an assortment, modelled prices and margins, created a local delivery offer and presented it to customers with cash.

The result was the third-highest sales performance at Maker Market.

More importantly, the student could trace that result back through the research and business decisions that produced it.

Design it. Build it. Price it. Test it.