Designer Wylie Robinson and a friend had a brainstorm one night, waiting to be rescued when their car broke down in the snow: Why not make blankets out of the same puffy, insulated material as the sleeping bags that were keeping them warm? They developed what became known as the Rumpl blanket.
The blankets, marketed for camping and other outdoor recreation, were a hit. The founders raised almost a quarter million dollars during their first Kickstarter campaign. But the outdoor boom during the pandemic really kicked Rumpl into high gear: Its revenue grew 500% between 2020 and 2022, Robinson said.
But as the company reaches its tenth anniversary, it’s rolling out a new-and-improved Rumpl. What’s more, the new Rumpls will cost less than the previous version, and have lower margins. Though the decision is not without risk, Robinson, the company’s CEO, believes it will position Rumpl for higher sales.
Outfoxing the copycats: Why alter a beloved “hero product,” and potentially disgruntle its fans? In a word, Amazon.
Once Rumpl became popular, Robinson told CFO Brew, other companies began selling similar blankets. Some of the imitations came from established outdoor brands, but the biggest threat Rumpl faced was from “direct-from-factory Amazon competitors,” Robinson said. “They modeled the entire form factor and feature set off ours,” he said, down to the hang loops that exist solely to attach tags to. Robinson decided a redesign would help Rumpl “reset the bar” for the puffy blanket category and set itself apart from competitors.
Optimizing for sales: So, what’s different? The new Rumpls come in a roll-top sack, rather than a drawstring bag, Robinson said, which is 20%–30% larger than the old one. That change came about because some customers had difficulty stuffing their Rumpls back into the bags. The new sacks also have only “a single place to peg the product,” or hang it on a rack, Robinson said, which will help keep in-store displays neater. Earlier versions of the Rumpl could be hung either by drawstrings or carabiners, which “sometimes resulted in a messy merchandising execution,” Robinson said.
The new Rumpls also have an improved “cape clip,” a fastener that lets users wear the blanket around their shoulders like a cape. “It’s much cleaner. It’s lower-profile. It doesn’t damage as easily,” Robinson said.
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Reducing prices—and friction: Perhaps surprisingly, the new Rumpls come at a lower price point than the originals. The old Rumpls cost $110 for solid-color blankets and $125 for prints. When customers clicked on a color tile on the blankets’ Amazon sales page, the price would change depending on whether the blanket was a solid or a print.
“That’s a friction point for the consumer,” Robinson said. “You’re not going to want to click every single one of those and see how the price changes.”
Though the new Rumpls have a “slightly lower product margin” than the old ones, Robinson feels the tradeoff is worth it: “We think that the $99 price point will facilitate a lot more volume and velocity and sell-through,” he said.
All hands on deck: The redesign, which took around 16–18 months, involved the entire company, not just the product and marketing teams, Robinson said. “It touched all aspects of the business,” he said, observing that “even though the changes seem minimal, they were all heavily scrutinized” and involved reviewing “tons of samples.”
The company also needed to clear out its old inventory. To do so, it offered discounts to retailers, something it doesn’t normally do, Robinson said. It also ran a five-week-long sale, the longest in its history, which drew a new audience to its products. “Seventy-four percent of purchasers during that five-week period were new consumers,” he said. Robinson is betting that many of them will come back: Around 30% of Rumpl customers buy from the company more than once.
After surging during the pandemic, Rumpl experienced a 15% decline in revenue in 2023. Though it’s too early to say to what degree the redesign will boost sales, Robinson is hopeful. “I do see people opting to upgrade” to the new product, he said. He also sees demand for outdoor products remaining high. “There’s a lot of discussion culturally now about mental health and people spending too much time on screens,” he said. “And I think that the outdoors is a great reprieve from that.”
And Rumpl is branching out beyond blankets. It already offers pillows, towels, mats, and apparel, and has plans to roll out more “outdoor comfort items” over the next three years, Robinson said.