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Is a Sex Toy Business the Same as a General e-commerce Business
In this article I will not be talking about the profitability and potential of the sex toy business, I assume already know about the possibilities within this business. In this article I am going to focus on the practical aspects of to start a sex toy e-commere business.
Many tech companies that offer general e-commerce solutions claim that you can use the same solutions they offer for creating an adult toys e-commerce site. I complete disagree with this. The technical aspects are the same but the business aspects are not the same.
It’s better to rely on services who help you to start a business and not just a website. I say this because PayPal doesn’t allow adult transactions and this is covered on their terms of service:
This means that you have to work with another service to replace PayPal in your business model. Also, when you create your sex toy website you first need to do market research and choose a niche in this market. And before starting your business you need to also select a supplier strategically. Unless you manufacture the sex toys in house, you need a supplier for your sex toys. When you choose a supplier you need to take consideration packaging policies, because people prefer online sex toys to in store sex toys because they want to be discreet.
How to Start a Sex Toy Online Store
Step 1 – Analyze the Market and the Future Possibilities
Since suppliers send the products directly to the customers you won’t have control over the quality. Experimenting with different platforms for sex toys will end up with high costs. You could sell on big marketplaces on eBay and Ali express. This is a good way to start this business if you have a limited number of products to sell. Amazon sex toys categories are active only on a few countries. Creating your own website business, however, is a better option and it is very easy to build your adult site because there are ready-made scripts for this.
Adent’s xMarketplace is on of them. It is ready-made with integrated payment solutions and quick set up. The best part is that you can customize your scripts. Here are some unique features of xMarketplace:
- Integrated drop shipping API
- Add ons plugins to add features
- Subscription based revenue
There are a good deal of e-commerce payment solutions, but many of them don’t allow users to sell adult services. Relying on adult-friendly payment solutions is more secure. They guarantee safety against all kind of attacks in the adult industry. Whether you are selling on Amazon or on your website, you must maintain discrete packaging. In short, select a corier and packaging partner who maintains discretion. To promote you site you can use your social media presence, You can check the Facebook pages of the big sex toy brands to get an idea.
Step 2 – Choose a Niche
You must ensure that you are in the niche in which there is not too much competition so that your SEO will be effective to get your site ranked.
All you have to do to choose a niche is going to a big site which sell cam toys and check its categories for ideas of a niche.
Step 3 – Choose the Suppliers
Traditional marketing is not an option for adult sex toy sites. When you build your site and everything is in line you might think that it is ready for sales. However, it is a competitive market out there.
Step 4 – Choose an Online Store Solution
You can sell sex toys on big sites like eBay, Amazon or Ali express. You will have to share your revenue with the platform but you won’t have to deal with shipping. But you can sell sex toys everywhere with mainstream platform, Amazon don’t ship sex toys to some countries, that’s why it’s better to build your own online sex store. Based on you requirements and budget, you can go for a ready-made script. xMarketplace comes with open source code and with just one time payment you can get the source code for good.
Here are some unique features:
- dropping shipping based
- dropp shipping API
- commission model set up
- manage product categories, orders
- multimple channels
- ad based revenue
- sex toys affiliate programs
You need to make your site mobile friendly, offer discourse coupons and keep looking for ways to stand out from the competition and gain your customer’s trust.
As I promised you, in this article I will talk about the economical ways to start selling sex toys. Choosing the best online store solution is very important when starting your sex toy business.
Many tech companies have offered solutions for creating your adult toy store. But PayPal doesn’t allow transactions which are adult in nature outside of the US. There are differences between creating an e-commerce business and a general business. You have to start your sex toy business the safe way.
The analysis of the current market includes choosing products in demand and suitable tech solutions, potential costs and marketing tactics. All these aspects of sex toy business vary. Don’t start a business for the current market. But think ahead 5 years from now. Are you certain your supplier is capable of delivering the products for longer periods?
Select the business model and calculate the costs for all the aspects mentioned above. Select the supplier strategically.
Step 5- Adult Friendly Hosting and Payment Solutions
Most of the payment solutions are not adult friendly. We saw PayPal at the beginning of this article. Go with secure payment solutions for adult businesses.
For adult hosting, I chose the Wealthy Affiliate hosting to create my sex toy site, it allows a sex toy site. It guarantees safety again all hurdles associated with adult businesses.
As for the payment solutions, xMarketplace is the script which I chose to build my sex toy business and it has the adult payment options integrated on it.
Since choosing a platform is a one time decision, you have to consider each option in detail. You can’t sell sex toys online everywhere through mainstream platforms. If you don’t want to depend on third party businesses to grow your own, then create your own site. I suggest going for open source and open coded scripts as you will have more control on your business.
The best part of being open sourced is that you can customize the code by you or your developer.
There are a good deal of e-commerce scripts in the market, but not of them are not adult friendly. Through many of them state that they allow adult businesses, you can’t know their terms unless you read carefully their terms and conditions. Go for dedicated hosting solutions.
Step 6 – Choose a Packaging Partner and Courieur
You can sell products from other sellers with xMarketplace.
You can select your revenue channels for available options. Discrete packaging is important for a sex toy store. You must maintain the discreet packaging. Don’t give any identifiable sex toy symbol to the courier. Don’t use adult imagery in the corier packaging.
Step 7 – Brand Building
The best place to build brand identity is social media. Follow the platform guidelines regarding adult content. You can check the Facebook pages of big sex toy store like LoveHoney to get a clue.
A brand needs a logo, so create one. You need to prepare a business strategy for the future thinking of the market 5 years from now. Do you think your sellers can commit to a stable partnership?
Your brand strategy needs to be related to your niche. Who are your competitors? How can you promote your products? If you need branding ideas, think about your suppliers and their brands. But as I also mentioned earlier, don’t include the branding in the packaging. People prefer online sex toy stores to physical stores because they want to be discrete.
You need suppliers to send products with your brand identity in the corier packaging.
Step 8 – Search Engine Optimization
You need to rank up on the search results. The script that you used to build your adult toy site needs to be SEO optimized. To ensure you stay in the safe side with SEO, avoid any black hat SEO tactics, they might ruin your business.
Step 9 – Other Marketing Tactics
You should leverage paid advertising and paid promotion to leverage your business especially in the beginning. Traditional marketing is not much of an option for adult sites.
Step 10 – Conversion Rate Optimization
Finally, when you are live and everything is in line, don’t think that your site is ready for sales. SEO and conversion optimization are never ending activities. Make your site mobile-friendly, launch affiliate programs and run customer loyalty programs.
Conclusion
This all you need to start a sex toy business in 2020.