Crumpler Bags Messenger Bags

Messenger bags are the one product that bike messengers and ex-messengers are the best in the world at designing and manufacturing. Messengers have been manufacturing their own quality bags since the 1980’s and continue today. (See below for links to more information on REAL messenger bags.

Crumpler is a bag maker that came late into the industry. It generally took the already existing bags and duplicated them for the Australian market. Their bags are certainly not viewed as one of the top messengers bags in the world and it’s unlikely any professional messenger outside of Australia would ever consider using one if they had a choice.

It is and always has been a company based on hype not quality and as such it takes pride in, “influencing” the consumer.

Although the company gets most of it publicity and attention as a result of its messenger bags, Crumpler is no longer a messenger bag company. It is primarily a laptop and camera bag company that spends most of its time at computer and camera trade shows. The company keeps its foot in the messenger bag business to create the illusion of “street cred” that it hopes will persuade people into thinking their bags are of decent quality.

Interestingly enough Crumpler has no respect in the worldwide messenger community.

Crumpler began like a lot of bag makers with Stuart Crumpler making them himself and putting his heart and soul into it.

Crumpler says ``I'd make one, use it, test it, sell it to someone else, then I'd make a better one.''

Dave Roper and Will Miller owned the courier company that employed Stuart Crumpler. They saw how popular his bags were and they thought hey ``there might be a dollar in this.'' So they made themselves partners with Crumpler and generally took over.

Crumpler built its business by using bike messengers. It acknowledges that "bike couriers were their best advertisements" and they used "bike shops and the close-knit courier community to help spread the word, which reached commuters, computer users and photographers."

The company brought in 2 German partners, Joerg Bodenschatz and Siegfried Elgert and started making their bags in Vietnam.

In general, the only time a company moves their manufacturing to a place like Vietnam or China is because of cost not quality. Even American bag maker Timbuk2, (who now use Chinese manufactures to make some of their bags) readily admits that.

But Roper hopes that no one is aware of that. In 2002, he absurdly stressed that Crumpler bags were made in Vietnam "for quality and reliable supply rather than cost-cutting." The company hasn't made public the name and location of their sub-contracted plant in Vietnam, leaving some messengers to wonder why, if they have nothing to hide then why are they hiding?

In Vietnam workers cannot live on their wages. The basic wage for a factory worker is $1.60 per day but the cost of eating is about $2. Physical and verbal abuse is common.

The problem with factories in Vietnam is that companies like Crumpler don't run them directly. They sub-contract their production to factories with abhorrent conditions. However the companies are certainly aware of the conditions and could enforce a code of conduct to improve them. They could set up an independent monitor to ensure the code of conduct is followed.

Today Roper dismisses the manufacturing in Vietnam by saying "It's a nice romantic idea to have the bags designed and made in Melbourne, but we aren't manufacturers, our strengths lie in marketing and design and that's what we wanted to concentrate on."

And that the key difference between Crumpler bags and the best messenger bags. Real messenger bags are made usually by messengers (or ex-messengers) themselves who are there own manufacturers and take pride in their work and their bags.

Roper takes pride in the marketing of his bags not the quality. His marketing tactics includes signing on to websites to review his own bags in attempt to create more hype. That's exactly why Crumpler prefers gimmicks, to draw the consumers attention away from the manufactured quality of the bags.