Market

Gone are the days when interest in erotic products was restricted to a small and secretive portion of the female population. It is notable that currently women have started to prioritize and include sexuality more in their conversations, whether at home, with family, friends and partners, and also in their self-care routines. 

This cultural change could be felt by the market for commercialization of sensual products, mainly by e-commerces. Online stores not only offer the discretion desired by consumers when purchasing an item, but are also increasingly prepared to serve customers in a humanized and didactic way.

According to the Brazilian Association of Erotic Market Companies (Abeme), the sex object trade grew by 12% in 2020. Sales of vibrators alone increased by 50% that year, with the equivalent of approximately 1 million units sold in Brazil.

To illustrate what the research showed, the editorial staff of E-Commerce Brasil spoke with pantynova – a digital native created in 2018 by, at the time, a couple of women – which has shown a 400% growth in the last two years. The same behavior was seen at Egalité – an online brand from Rio Grande do Sul, founded by a mother and daughter more than 10 years ago – which practically quadrupled in size in the first three months of the pandemic.

Led by women, both companies believe that there are many factors that contributed to the exponential growth of the segment between 2020 and 2021 and see in e-commerce the possibility of keeping this category on the rise for the next few years.

Social isolation and new forms of pleasure

As soon as shops and offices closed their doors and people found themselves locked at home, in social isolation, in early March 2020, Luana Lumertz was startled by a significant increase in sales of vibrators in her store. “It was quite surprising, we were shocked at first, but happy with the demand”, confesses the founder of Egalité. 

In addition to being an entrepreneur, she is a sex educator, so she works with other teams of resellers, has a course for those who want to open a sex shop from scratch, and offers mentorships to other stores. This experience allows her to have a broader understanding of the sector: “I realize that other people [who work in this segment] are also growing a lot and the market has become very professional, especially in the last two years”, she says.

At pantynova, created by Izabela Starling and Heloisa Etelvina initially to satisfy the pleasure of lesbian women and today, in addition to contemplating the LGBTQIA+ audience, it also meets the needs of heterosexual women, it was no different. For Etelvina, several events contributed to a more aggressive performance in sales in recent years, including the dissemination of self-care and self-love among women, disseminated mainly on social networks.

“The issue of feminism on the internet helped and everyone had time to discover themselves during the pandemic. Everyone found themselves alone and had time to experience something. As we were all alone, nothing better than an erotic toy to understand our own body”, she points out. As an example that curiosity and interest in new experiences has increased in recent years, she cites a “boom” in the sale of products that did not usually come out much, such as the butt plug.

Just like most e-commerces that saw their revenues hit records between 2020 and 2021, these numbers are currently more stable. However, the uptrend is still a reality. “We are in the range of R$ 2 million per year, but the expectation is that in 2022 we will still exceed the revenue of the last 2 years, when we had exponential growth”, bets Lumertz. 

In pantynova the movement is similar. The company also continues to expand and now sells its products on a wholesale basis: it is already possible to find them at Amaro and next month at Renner.

The dissemination and dissemination of information in the media on the subject also collaborated and still collaborate for the expansion of the sector. Just as the press has been working to break this taboo, famous personalities talk about the subject more and more naturally and even dramaturgy has played its part. An example is the recent scene in the Globo soap opera, Segundo Sol, which showed the actress Andrea Beltrão playing Rebeca, an older woman, masturbating during prime time on open TV. 

It is actions like these that the e-commerce aimed at female empowerment Divenção e Amor attributes to the 40% increase in demand for erotic products by the 50+ public in recent months. “Our sales balance over the last six months showed that there was not only a quantitative but also a qualitative increase, as women are beginning to understand more about the types of sex toys and no longer just buy lubricants or lingerie to 'please' the couple. . They want, more and more, erotic accessories that bring self-knowledge, reaching the real orgasm, finding the famous G-spot. .

“ As I work with  erotic products  , I received from many people the scenes of the soap opera character masturbating and, since then, I have seen in all my social networks excerpts of scenes and phrases of Andrea Beltrão's character. I think it's positively influencing people, it's another way for women to get to know each other and seek their own pleasure ” , encourages Natália.

Lack of information and machismo feed taboo within the erotic product market

Anyone who sees the entrepreneurs reaping their laurels at this moment has no idea how difficult it was to walk the path here. Etelvina says that, in the beginning, when they discovered that it was a women's company and that it sold products related to sexuality, business did not go ahead. “Companies didn't want to partner, didn't respond to emails, didn't give feedback. In the meantime, I see that for men [doing these negotiations] is always much easier. At a happy hour they close the deal”.

Due to lack of knowledge, companies that work in this field are, several times, confused with pornography companies. Which is quite different, according to Lumertz, since the erotic product is focused on stimulating women's sexual well-being, independence and self-care. 

“People belittle our work because they believe that sexuality and pornography are the same thing. We have already received inappropriate photos and harassment from men. Even today it is difficult to be a woman and work in the erotic market. When I say that my partner is my mother, I still hear 'Wow! How strange you! Mother and daughter and talk about sex'. So there is still a lot of taboo in society, even though we are moving towards a more relaxed and natural discussion on the subject.”

Among the 480 products in the store, Egalité also sells products related to personal hygiene and intimate care for women, but it does not have the same conditions as e-commerces focused on health and beauty. “We can't use WhatsApp Business, we can't sponsor an ad on Instagram. There are several restrictions for being a sex shop. It's like we work with pornography. People still haven't noticed the real change in the quality of life of those who consume sensual products”, defends Lumertz.

Maximum discretion and informative content

Even though erotic products are more popular and the loneliness of the pandemic has made consumers more curious about the forms of pleasure they can give their bodies, the success of online sex shop companies would not be possible if the care with the experience of the customer did not exist.

Among the biggest pains and needs of the public that buys erotic products over the internet, discretion is a very important point to be considered by stores. Attention should go from the packaging without any stickers or logo that refers to the content, to the care in issuing invoices, without information about what the product is or the name of the company.

“Everyone is afraid of how they will receive this product. For a relative, doorman or co-worker to find out”, says Etelvina. That's why pantynova opted for a name that has nothing to do with sexuality, and ensures that no item comes with the description. “It's all about the SKU. It doesn't even come on the invoice, nothing that I can identify ”, she reassures.

Reverse logistics also happen and the process remains confidential. However, because it is an intimate product, the company does not exchange when the product has been used. “We have a plastic that is our security. If this plastic was violated, we did not receive the product”, explains Etelvina, who points out that all information on proper use is always very well described to the customer. “But nobody reads the manual and they always end up resorting to our service to find out how to turn on the product or even use it”, she laments.

To minimize these problems, companies invest in educational content that is very didactic both on websites and on social networks. The success on the brands’ Instagram, Twitter and TikTok pages is a great attraction for the public, so it is common to produce live commerce and use digital influencers to promote and build brands. The description of the products in the virtual storefronts of the website and in the posts must be very clear and objective, as well as rich in images and videos.

Investment in content at Egalité is a priority. The company has a YouTube channel run by Luana Lumertz, with more than 330,000 subscribers. There, topics range from sexuality, product reviews, entrepreneurship to relationships. “It ends up being a platform that pulls a lot of sales for e-commerce, about 30% to 40% return on sales. Another big slice is due to Instagram, both from my personal profile and Egalité's. There, we took questions from customers, talked about the issue of discreet packaging, showed the vibrators up close, talked about masturbation, brought a very informative content.”

Humanized service also ends up being another priority for online stores in this segment. At pantynova, the founders dispensed with the use of chatbots. “We try to bring the consumer experience as close as possible”, says Etelvina. One of the outlets used by the founding duo to ensure that the public has the most realistic view possible of what the product is like, in addition to the proportions of measurements, the site has a virtual reality technology pioneered in sex shops, similar to those used by and -commerces of furniture and decoration, that it is possible to know the real size of the dildos.

Caring for consumers is the key to getting spontaneous engagements and such positive feedback. Working with a team of women and on behalf of women's health is what inspires Lumertz to continue in the erotic market , despite the prejudice that still exists about the medium. “We believe that having an active sex life will reflect on all other aspects of a woman: work, humor, joy, socializing… when we talk about libido, we talk about vital energy. It is related to individuality and sexuality. So the product we work on is nothing more than a tool that brings possibilities of discovery, self-knowledge and autonomy of pleasure”.

By Marina Teodoro from the E-Commerce Brasil Newsroom