Enjoying another way with erotic toys is presented as an attractive option for more and more couples, or also for single people. Unprejudiced. In fact, consumers of this type of accessories are many sensible women who are not suspicious of letting themselves be carried away by passing impulses of age, aware of what they want, beyond the popular Satisfayer. Everything except sexual boredom.
From a company specialized in this sensitive and special technology, Diversual, its founders Puria Shahdoost-Rad and Fernando Martínez reveal for ABC some of these details of the intimate habits of many Spaniards, a kind of “bed secrets” that are no longer as shameful as in other times of repression and morality. And for this very discreet market, even the presentation of the product counts.
How have Spanish tastes in sexual games evolved since they began their business career? Are there differences with other countries? Is buying more or less here?
People talk more and more naturally about pleasure, sexuality, orgasms and masturbation. It happens privately, but also openly on social networks where both anonymous people and well-known characters and influencers deal shamelessly with sexuality. Moreover, it is no longer uncommon for the media, both online and written, and even on television, to occupy their spaces with these issues. All this makes more and more people in Spain enter the world of erotic toys. At the beginning of our trajectory, low-medium range toys were acquired and little by little, thanks to the information on sexuality and toys that exists on the network to which we have contributed from the beginning, the interest has changed towards higher quality toys and more specific. The user has more knowledge about the product and knows what he wants.
In addition, little by little the stigmas that the use of toys had but also about certain practices such as anal sex, prostate stimulation, pegging or the world of bondage and BDSM have been broken. They are no longer considered “weird things,” dissatisfied, or obsessed with sex. For this reason, the acquisition of products has diversified from lifelong vibrators to products and toys with more functions or that allow other types of games and stimulation.
Each country and each society is a world, there are toys like the Satisfyer that have penetrated the Spanish market with great force and not so much in other countries such as the US. There are products or practices that become fashionable because it comes out in a series, a top influencer takes it out and it runs like wildfire, and this type of situation normally occurs at the country level without crossing borders.
What profiles of types of couples or individual users are deduced from your database with more than 500,000 clients?
People and/or couples who buy our products are undoubtedly open-minded people, curious and eager to experiment in their sexual experiences. Most of them are women between 25 and 40 years old, although we are increasingly seeing how the client profile is expanding both towards older people and younger people.
Sales of this type of erotic items, such as those of Diversual, are especially concentrated in the Christmas and Epiphany campaigns as gifts. What arguments would you give potential consumers to buy now, in summer, or at other times of the year?
There is no doubt that making an erotic gift has many and varied benefits, but with them, we are taking care of and improving our sexuality. We are adding play and fun to our sexual experiences, avoiding falling into the dreaded sexual boredom or helping to get out of it, but we are also contributing to improving self-esteem and happiness. If caring for and improving sexuality helps improve our well-being and, in correlation, our happiness, why not do it all year round? And it is that sexual toys and accessories also contribute to improving our health, sexual health.
What moments are conducive to peak consumption of these “toys” for pleasure?
As usual, the consumption peaks coincide with “typical” dates for giving as Valentine’s Day, in which we have verified that it is used not only to acquire an erotic gift for the potential partner, but also to make self-gifts to celebrate. self-esteem or simply take advantage of commercial calls and special prices for. Sales campaigns are also carried out on special days such as Father’s Day, Mother’s Day… in which the increase in sales is related to the gift or self-gift concept.
Another key date par excellence is the now traditional Black Friday, which for a few years has been one of the most important sales campaigns of the year for any sector, not just the erotic one.
Additionally, sales peaks occur on other days such as Blue Monday, Single’s Day…
What strategies are you adopting to deseasonalize?
It is important to encourage sales throughout the year and the main strategy is, along with taking advantage of key calendar days such as those mentioned above to carry out communication and marketing campaigns and actions that encourage the purchase of products, to take advantage of random days of the calendar in principle not related to gifts, but to sexuality (female orgasm day, oral sex, BDSM, anal sex…) and even sometimes not directly related to sexuality (chocolate day, croquette, friendship…)
In addition, the marketing team “invents” and organizes specific sales campaigns at any time and periodically such as: happy hour with free shipping, free shipping week, staggered discounts “more products, more discounts”, flash offers of a product determined, gift of a product with the purchase of another…
How important is the presentation of these products, the packaging, and what does the Onil technology with which they work offer these containers?
Without a doubt, having partners so close to us in the province of Alicante, and more specifically in Onil, where there are companies with great experience and cutting-edge technology in this industry, is a point in favor that makes us more competitive.
The presentation and packaging of any product is important, but we believe that in erotic products it is even more fundamental. The packaging of the Diversual product brand includes soft colors and a minimalist design far removed from what was once the packaging of erotic toys, there are no sexual connotations or images of people. A neutral image is sought that also does not assign the product to one sex or another.
The design of the box is simple and functional to receive it in a compact way and it can be handled in our facilities in the most agile and fast way possible. Inside the boxes, the toy is included with its corresponding charging cable and a bag for its correct storage, all of this inside a thermo-sealed bag to guarantee the safety and hygiene of a product for intimate use such as an erotic toy.
In order to contribute to caring for the planet and reduce the use of paper, we have chosen to include a QR code in each box with access to the instructions for each product with information on how to use it and inspiration to get the most out of each product. product. In this way they can be consulted at any time and even before the purchase because they are also linked to each product file on the web.
What news will your company offer in the short term? What are the lines of experimentation for the future?
The brand and the online store are constantly evolving and adapting to what is happening in the market and the online world. At the catalog level, we are the online sex shop with the largest number of active references, more than 6,000, and the goal is to increase it constantly and weekly. As we always say, there is a product for each person, moment and need and for this the catalog must be wide and diverse in terms of types of products, materials and prices.
The line of private label products has more than 90 references and already accounts for 65% of the top sales on the web and 35% of turnover. Our goal is to continuously incorporate new references, designing and manufacturing products with the highest quality-price ratio. In this 2022 we plan to launch a minimum of 20 new products, including suction cups of course.
Communication and marketing actions are also evolving and we will experiment with new communication channels, combining them with offline actions and opening new distribution channels.
