Selk’bag began with a familiar camping frustration: “traditional sleeping bags keep people warm but restrict their movement and, frankly, are completely boring,” explained co-founder Cristóbal Murillo. Designer Rodrigo Alonso turned that problem into the idea for a human-shaped sleeping bag, then joined forces with Murillo to develop it into an international brand.
“When you go camping with a traditional sleeping bag, you’re always stuck like a burrito,” said Murillo. “We hated it. We wanted to have movement in the tent or outside of it.”
Designer Rodrigo Lonso, spent years in Chile cutting and sewing prototypes by hand, more than 54 individual pieces per suit, testing different fabrics, sizes, and fits with friends and family.
“It was a long process of iterations and sampling,” he said. “We were trying to figure out the right technical fit to make it wearable, comfortable, and fun.”
The breakthrough came in 2007 when the team entered a design contest in Chile and won a trip to ISPO, the world’s largest outdoor trade show in Europe. They placed second and suddenly had eyes on them from across the globe.
“It was completely unexpected,” said Murillo. “That’s where we said, ‘Okay, this is a thing. This is a brand.’”
The first Selk’bag prototype at ISPO in 2007, where the team placed second at the world’s largest outdoor trade show and caught the attention of distributors across the globe.
Following Selk’bag’s recognition at ISPO in 2007, the brand launched in Chile and expanded internationally in 2008 through distributors in Europe and the U.S. His U.S. distributor introduced him to the Amazon store, a retailer Murillo had never heard of back in Chile.
“No one knew what Amazon was. The only Amazon we knew was the river,” he said. “E-commerce was completely nonexistent down in Chile.”
Choosing the right tools for each stage of growth
Selk’bag has been selling in the Amazon store since 2008, before the retailer even had warehouses. What started as a few hundred units 20 years ago, has grown into a brand selling thousands of units a month in multiple countries.
“It’s been amazing the growth that we’re seeing in the Amazon store,” said Murillo.
By 2013, Murillo moved to San Diego to establish U.S. headquarters and take advantage of the growing momentum. Today, Selk’bag operates out of Encinitas, California, with a five-person team and offers 50 to 60 SKUs, from the lightweight summer version to the technical Pro with Primaloft insulation, plus accessories like towels, sleepers, and blankets.
“We started as an outdoor company, but now we’re more of a lifestyle brand,” he said. “People use it inside the house, taking the dog out, taking the trash out, or just taking a stroll in the park when it’s cold.”
Selk’bag is among the independent sellers in California who collectively sold more than 725 million items in Amazon’s store last year, according to Amazon’s 2025 Small Business Empowerment Report. Independent sellers make up more than 60% of sales in Amazon’s store, most of them small and medium-sized businesses.
Cristóbal Murillo stocks Selk’bag inventory at the company’s Encinitas headquarters, where a five-person team manages 50 to 60 SKUs.
Murillo said the flexibility of choice is the Amazon store’s superpower for sellers. He doesn’t need to use every tool for every product, he can pick and choose what makes sense for his business, and make changes as needed. A perfect example of this, he said, is fulfillment.
Selk’bag uses a hybrid fulfillment strategy. Murillo chooses Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to store, pick, pack, and ship Selk’bag’s top-selling products and handle customer service and returns. For slower-rotating SKUs, Murillo choosesFulfilled by Merchant, allowing his team to fulfill orders in-house.[KJ3] The approach gives his small team operational flexibility and increased warehouse capacity.
Once the logistics were running, Murillo needed to solve a different problem. A wearable sleeping bag is not something people search for if they don’t know it exists. He enabled Amazon Ads and saw results immediately. The suite of products and solutions helped him connect with the right audiences in the right places, both in the Amazon store and wherever they spend time. But for Murillo, the real value was precision.
“Having the option to run ads was a game changer,” he said. “You can tailor your ads to the right buyer, not just everyone.”
Murillo also uses Amazon Vine for new product launches. The program builds a foundation of authentic reviews, which matters for a product most people have never seen before. But for Murillo, the reviews do more than build trust. They drive product development.
“Reviews are extremely important for us because that’s where we get the feedback to iterate, fix, or make the product better,” he said. “It gives us real information from customers about what we can do better.”
When early customers wanted to wear shoes, Murillo adjusted the design. When people started using Selk’bag for everyday errands instead of just camping, he leaned into lifestyle positioning.
“People kind of took it on their own and now they’re using it in different ways that we never saw coming,” he said. “That’s been amazing to see.”
Selk’bag’s product range has grown from one prototype to four models and dozens of SKUs, reflecting the brand’s evolution from outdoor gear to lifestyle company.
Growing the business and giving back to San Diego
Even as the brand has grown, Murillo stays rooted in the San Diego community. He’s been a member of the San Diego Sports Innovators Program for seven years, which connected him with local mentors in marketing, operations, and legal. Now he mentors other San Diego entrepreneurs himself, dedicating a couple of days each month to founders just starting out.
“Being an entrepreneur is a very lonely world,” he said. “Whatever connection you have with someone that can teach you at least something, it’s so valuable.”
Looking ahead, Murillo is preparing to use Amazon Warehousing & Distribution, a low-cost bulk storage solution that distributes seller inventory to the Amazon store and non-Amazon sales channels to further streamline operations. And, recently he started using Creator Connections to partner with influencers in the Amazon store. Looking back and seeing his success in the Amazon store, and the tools and programs developed by Amazon to support his business along the way, he said gives him confidence looking towards the future.