How to Sell Sex Toys Online(2023): Start Your Adult Toy Business Today
If you’re someone who has been looking for ideas to make money in the adult industry, then you have come to the right place. In this article, we will present an outlook on how to sell sex toys, which is a great option to get into the adult industry.
As you probably would know, the adult industry is one of the most lucrative and profitable industries in the world. It presents a plethora of opportunities in various verticals like live camming, porn production, selling sex toys, and many more. The adult industry has been on the rise year after year, and the growth trend will keep going higher in the coming years.
What makes the sex toy industry evergreen?
The adult industry has been through its share of ups and downs, but one section which has seen only grown over the years is selling sex toys. Even during the pandemic, when the adult industry, especially porn, took a hit, the sex toys market saw huge growth in terms of revenue.
The fact that people have opened up to experimenting more in their bedrooms has led to the rise of the sex toy business. In 2011, the global sex toys market was valued at USD 30.48 billion and is expected to grow at 8.4% CAGR by 2030. This shows the immense potential of selling the sex toys business and makes it an evergreen business.
Important things to keep in mind before selling sex toys online
Before you start on your journey of selling sex toys, there are a few important points that you need to consider. Like any other business, selling sex toys business also needs research and follow guidelines.
Is it legal to sell sex toys?
It is very important to check in your area of operation if selling sex toys is legal or not. It can vary from country to country, so it is better to check it once before you get into any legal trouble.
PRO TIP — While most of the states in the US allow the sale of sex toys, few states like Alabama criminalize selling sex toys.
How to choose a niche to sell sex toys?
Before you start selling sex toys, it is advised to choose a niche for your brand. Choosing a niche helps you distinguish your brand and product in the market and also builds a loyal user base for your business. Choose the type of products you’ll like to sell, the theme of your sex store, etc., to define a niche for your sex toy business.
How to pack sex toys for shipping?
Discreet packing of sex toys is very important to keep your customers’ privacy intact. Even in states where selling adult toys are allowed, there may be regulations against the display of adult products. So it is a must to discreetly pack sex toys when you’re shipping them to your customers.
Guidelines for design and material of sex toys
As your sex products come in contact with private areas, it is necessary to make sure that the material and the design of your sex toys aren’t harmful to the users in any way. There is an ISO guideline for safety standards of sex toys that you should abide by if you’re planning to sell sex toys.
Different ways of how to sell sex toys
There are various ways through which you can get into the selling sex toys business. Your choice of business model will depend on how much time and money you want to invest into this business. Let’s go through the ways in which you can sell adult toys.
1. Creating your own sex toys and brand
You can choose to make your own sex toys but remember this will take time, money, and proper research to yield desired results. You will have control over everything, right from procuring raw materials to make sex toys to designing and marketing the products and your brand.
Making your own sex toys has advantages like you get full control over your business, and you can make unique sex toys that are not available anywhere else. Meanwhile, other than the shortcoming of huge time and money investment required, you can find it difficult to scale in the future.
2. Outsource manufacturing of sex toys
This business model allows you to focus on just the designing and marketing of sex toys while the manufacturing can be outsourced to factories across the world. The biggest challenge in this model is to find trusted manufacturers and get them aligned with your thought process.
You can run a profitable adult toy business by focusing on designing new products and marketing the products to reach the audience. Although you have less control over the manufacturing of sex toys, if you manage to find an experienced and trusted manufacturer, then you can easily manage this business model.
3. Resell and dropship sex toys
This is the most relaxed business model for selling adult toys. You can either choose to resell sex toys where you buy sex toys in bulk from manufacturers and resell and ship it from your store or inventory. Or you can go for dropshipping where you don’t need an inventory; you can just dropship sex toys through your website while the inventory and shipping are managed by the dropshipper.
If you’re looking to earn a passive income by selling sex toys, then this business model is perfect for you. No need for any inventory or shipping; you can just maintain a website and display products from various dropshippers for people to buy.
4. Choose your sex toys supplier
Choosing a suitable sex toys supplier needs to consider many factors. You need to consider price, quality, service, reputation and other factors, comprehensively consider and choose the most suitable supplier for you. At the beginning, you can buy from the online sex toys wholesale platform, but such products cannot be customized with your own brand. Considering all factors, it is the best solution to find a sex toys factory as your sex toys supplier, which can solve the problems of product quality, price, service quality and supply capacity. 70% of the world's sex toys products are produced in China, so you can consider finding a cooperative supplier from China to get a lot of profit margins. There are a lot of sex toys manufacturers in China, and they all say that they are sex toys manufacturer, but many of them are not. The editor here can recommend DINGFOO in Dongguan, China. It is a very well-known manufacturer in China. It has a history of more than ten years and should be the largest sex toys manufacturer in China. Many brands in the market are manufactured through DINGFOO, and Durex is also one of its customers. In addition to OEM for brands, it also provides sex toys wholesale services for small and medium-sized businesses. It is a good partner for your business.
Types of sex toys to start your sex toy business
Sex toys come in a lot of variety and shapes. Depending on your target audience and your niche, you can choose what type of sex toys you would want to sell. Here are a few categories to make your choice easier.
1. Pleasure stimulating sex toys
Any sex toy that stimulates the sexual pleasure of a human can be considered under this category. Sex toys like dildos, vibrators, butt plugs, anal beads, penis rings, etc., come under pleasure stimulating sex toys.
Stimulating sex toys can include anything as simple as a dildo to something as complex as penis pumps. People who treat sex as an art rather than an act are most interested in such sex toys that intensify pleasure during orgasms.
2. Pleasure-enhancing sex toys
Sexual experience enhancers are usually what comes in the fantasy world of humans. These sex toys enhance the overall sexual experience of users and take them into their fantasy world, giving them immense pleasure.
Some of the sex toys that enhance sexual experiences are handcuffs, feather ticklers, Mouth gags, roleplay costumes, etc. Any sex toy that can fulfill a user’s fantasy can be termed as a pleasure-enhancing sex toy.
3. Sex accessories
Sex accessories are sex toys that are considered to be mandatory in most sexual acts. Products like flavored condoms, lubricants, silicone tubes, toy cleaners, etc., are considered accessories to enhance sexual pleasure.
Sex accessories are the most popular sex toys as everyone needs these in their sexual acts. So if you want a sex toy business where there the demand is high, then selling sex accessories can work well for you.
How to build a website for your sex toys business?
It doesn’t matter if you plan to have a physical sex toys store or an online sex toy business, in either case, you’ll need to have a website to showcase, sell, and promote your brand. Your sex toys website will be the face of your brand, and you need to make sure to put on your best face.
To build a website from scratch, you’ll need to invest time and money. You’ll need to hire a team to write the codes, design the website, and do other technical stuff to create your website. All this does take a good amount of investment and takes time too. Here are a few things that you’ll need to build your own sex toys website.
Coding
Domain
Hosting
Website building platform
Design
Content
Multiple integrations
How to market your sex toys website to get customers?
Marketing your brand and business is very important for the success of your adult toy business. When it comes to marketing adult products, you have to take some precautions and do proper research before you market your products.
1. Content & SEO
Content plays a big part in marketing your website to the audience. Well-written and informational blogs related to the sex toys industry, both on your website and on other websites, help in building trust and authority for your website. Even the content on your website needs to be keyword rich with keywords related to the adult toys business.
Optimizing your website for a better ranking on search engines is an effective way to market your business. When people search for keywords related to your business, then if you’ve done the SEO right on your website, then it will show up higher on the search results, thus promoting your website.
2. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing for the sex toys business can be done by asking other websites or blogs to promote your platform. Whenever a user comes to your website redirected from your affiliate partner’s website and makes a purchase of a sex toy on your website, then you pay a pre-decided commission to the affiliate.
3. Paid ads
You can buy ad space on popular adult websites like PornHub, and promote your sex toys business on them. You can also run ads on Google, but you’ll have to follow their guidelines and not be direct in your messaging for your sex toys ads. Read the guidelines for sexual content on social media platforms before publishing your ads on them.
4. Email marketing
Email marketing is a great way to promote your sex toy business and products. You can send out regular emails to your user database with promotional offers, or new product launch newsletter, and such. Compose your emails in such a way that users get lured to reading them rather than marking them as spam.
