After experiencing unprecedented growth through the pandemic, the team at Portland-based Rumpl saw no signs that demand would soften for its outdoor blankets as the world returned to normal.

“In hindsight, of course we should have,” said Wylie Robinson, co-founder and CEO, in an interview with The Daily.

The company grew by approximately 600% between 2020 and 2022, and Rumpl couldn’t keep up with demand. Everything was selling out, and in late 2022 the brand increased its prices to try to capture more margin and test just how much people wanted their products. In spring 2023, Rumpl planned for another blockbuster year.

But like so many other outdoor brands, those misjudgments led to a glut of inventory. For the past year, Rumpl has had to downsize its tight-knit team to 23 full-time employees. Many employees have equity, and some left voluntarily as they saw sales drop. The company has streamlined its offerings and readjusted its prices. And it’s taking a unique approach to Black Friday and holiday shopping this year, dropping exclusive, limited-edition products each day from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday in addition to offering discounts of up to 40% on their website.

“Everyone is so discount-heavy right now, there’s so many promotions on the internet, and it’s been this way for the whole year,” Robinson said. “Our thesis is that we’re going to need to do something besides just offer a sweet discount, because everyone’s going to be offering a sweet discount. So we’ve got some really exciting product launches this holiday.”

Bringing Newness and Urgency to Holiday

Starting on Nov. 28, Rumpl will launch a different limited-edition blanket each day until Cyber Monday, drawing on its archive of favorites.

By dropping products such as the popular NASA Space Blanket, which sold out on the first day it hit shelves in fall/winter 2020, the company aims to capture sales by combining urgency and discounts during Cyber Week, when almost 25% of holiday ecommerce spending happens, according to Salesforce.

Planning for the holidays started in January 2024 by reexamining what had worked and what hadn’t the previous year. Rumpl had made another error, which was hiring an ecommerce agency in October 2023. The experience was disastrous. During that crucial holiday quarter, the agency’s credit card expired three times, halting digital ads for days until a new card was added to the account.

“For us, these are $100,000 days,” Robinson said. “It was so egregious that we had a two-year contract we signed with them, and we got out of it in January after three months. They put up no fight.”

This holiday season, Rumpl is taking a different approach in several areas. Since between 25% and 30% of Rumpl’s customers are repeat customers, they will be targeted via email. Rumpl also put more money into prospecting activities in the second and third quarters of this year with brand messaging without the expectation that those consumers would buy. The company will retarget that pool with more specific product offerings through the fourth quarter.

Wylie Robinson, co-founder and CEO of Rumpl. Photo courtesy of Rumpl.

Retail partners will also participate in discounts but will not be part of the limited-edition drops. From Oct. 25 to Dec. 20, Rumpl is engaging and incentivizing retailer floor staff with a holiday merch contest, with prizes up to $600 in credit. There’s also an incentive to restock, where retailers can earn 3% net 60 payment terms and free freight when they order more than 12 units of any Rumpl product.

Refocusing on Core Consumer

Rumpl is also refocusing on its core consumer in the outdoor industry after flirting with new avenues such as sports licensing and outdoor furniture in the pandemic.

“We had this really broad aperture of consumers that we acquired through ‘21 and ’22, and while it resulted in a lot of new business, it also resulted in just a really, really broad landscape of how we should be speaking to our consumers,” Robinson said. “So now we’re focusing on those core consumers that we know have been with us for a long time.”

That means reducing the number of SKUs the brand offers and ensuring that the designs really align with outdoor enthusiasts. Rumpl has also readjusted its pricing, returning back to $99 for all blankets.

Rumpl is rightsizing its inventories and workforce. Photo courtesy of Rumpl.

Rumpl’s own DTC business is about 45% of its sales and Amazon is between 10% and 15% of sales. Brick-and-mortar retail comprises about 35% of sales. There’s a very small international business, and the rest is its corporate business, where companies can order branded blankets. In 2025, Rumpl is targeting the Southeastern U.S. to grow its retail presence and DTC sales.

Robinson credits Rumpl’s lead investor, Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford’s White Road Investments, for trusting him to get the business back on track and not focusing too much on results.

“I’m really, in the short term, trying to decouple the work from the results,” Robinson said. That means focusing on the product assortment, ensuring the right messaging is shared in marketing, and planning for long-term.

“There’s some short-term medicine that we need to take, ie. revenues declining from a peak period in ’22,” Robinson said. “But the business itself is becoming a better business.”

Kate Robertson can be reached at [email protected].