The thing nobody tells you about a fabric storage box until you've had one for a year is that the fold lines never go away. You can press it flat all you want, but it remembers the shape it was folded into on the warehouse shelf, and it'll sag back into that shape every time you half empty it. The good ones fight that memory a little longer. The cheap ones give up after about three months and just look tired, even when they're full.
Keep these away from anything that needs to breathe, so no out of season wool sweaters sealed in a canvas bin for a whole year, you'll open it to a faint mustiness that takes days of airing to shift. They're fine for bulky off season stuff like winter coats or bedding, less fine for anything delicate that moths or damp actually want to get at, that needs a proper lidded container, not a soft sided box with a loose weave. Over time the fabric ones fade unevenly if they sit near a window, and the structure in the base starts to go soft, so the box leans rather than stands. Wipe spills immediately, vacuum the inside between uses, and don't overload one past what its own base can support, because a sagging bottom is usually the first sign the whole thing is on its way out.
What separates a decent one from a disappointing one comes down to three things: the stiffness in the base board, the quality of the stitching on the handles, and whether the fabric is actually woven tight or just looks that way under a nice color. Pick one up empty and press the sides. If it folds like paper, that's what it'll do in your closet too, under weight, within weeks. A well made box has handles stitched through reinforced fabric, not just glued or stapled on, because that's the part that takes all the strain every time you move it. Lids that actually sit flat and stay put matter more than they sound like they would, a lid that slides off halfway is a lid you'll stop using within a month.
If you're starting from nothing, go with a mid sized set in a plain, sturdy weave rather than one giant box, since smaller units get used more often and distribute weight better than one enormous bin you're afraid to lift. Get a set with a rigid base and reinforced handles before you worry about color or pattern, matching everything later is easy, replacing a box that's already collapsed under a stack of sweaters is not.
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