(NOTE: This story was written by Kris Kay and appears in the December 2024 issue of SE Magazine.)
It’s been ages since I’ve written one of these things — so, bear with me, it should be like riding a bike, right? At least, I think I still know what I’m supposed to be doing. Maybe not. Anyway, here it goes.
Hello, dear retailer. When you and I last left off on this page, I was moving on to SE’s sales and marketing department and leaving the writing duties to our editor. Between then (say, 2013-ish), and now (November 2024-ish), a lot has changed. The pleasure product industry doesn’t resemble itself from what it was a decade ago. Peddling sex toys is out. Selling sexual wellness is in. We’ve grown our acronyms so large when addressing all of our identities that we added a ‘+’ just to save time. A lot of familiar faces have left our line of sight. Brick and mortars have closed, bought out or otherwise. Entire brands have since shuttered, and some have been absorbed. We’ve gotten more conservative in our sales methods, our merchandising, our verbiage. Our industry has shrunk. Just take a look around.
Who’s doing the same thing that they were doing a decade ago?
Sorry, rhetorical question … better yet, who would want to be? We all age, some better than the rest, but with age comes the byproduct of a certain kind of wisdom, or so we’re told. Do we have a consensus as to where our industry stands today? I’d venture if I were to ask that out loud, no two answers would be the same. Fundamentally, we’re still selling pleasure. We are that much more learned in the field of vaginal gadgetry and battery-operated, water-resistant penis pleasure inhalers, than the general public. Some of us are even board-certified, others are merely product-tested. Either way, we know our way around the shelf racks to provide curious customers exactly what they desire. We have a particular set of skills. We’re making money.
But as much as we were making a decade ago?
If I’ve done the math correctly, and I like to think that I have, we’ve burned through at least 65 issues, 50-plus trips out to Las Vegas, 11 ANME Storerotica Award show appearances, four editors, and countless articles about the prosperity, longevity, and temerity of the adult retail industry. If you’re reading this then chances are you’re still in the game. Bravo. That game has changed though —drastically— and you and your store(s) have to ask, are you better off now than you were way back when?
Some people may hate that question since it’s been hijacked for political leanings during the last election. I ask myself that often because, I think, I’m better off now. I mean, I’m still alive. And that’s after the first Trump administration, having a baby, running from a shitload of hurricanes, and now preparing for a second Trump term. It’s all been fucking exhausting to be quite honest. And through all that heinous nonsense we’re told to carry on doing business as usual until we eventually doom scroll into our next existential threat.
Anyway, I digress. How are your sales?
Don’t lie. I’m told they’re bad. Like, bad bad. At least that’s the hot gossip. We don’t whisper it any longer, you know, we simply put it on Facebook groups and wait to see how many likes it gets. Disaster, as far as communal experiences go, can be contagious. Just find what works for you and watch the fear do the rest, and eventually others will join in: inflation, shifting consumer habits, Big Box, ‘Map’ pricing, China, tariffs, etc. I hear a lot about the impending casualties to befall this industry but I haven’t seen too much bloodshed despite all the bluster.
Things change.
True, I say that as someone sitting in an office, and not hustling on your sales floor. But I want to believe that our industry is adapting to the changes that come its way more than succumbing to them. Recession incoming. Again? What are you prepared to do? Trump is back? Shit. How are you going to adapt? Are you going to do it, or will you be forced to? The point is, we have faced transitional times like this before, administrations (sort of) like this before. The only difference I see this time is that we’re amplifying our fears more than leading with our actions. And I don’t see that helping stores, or the brands you carry or the customers you’re selling to.
2025 will be the year of dramatic change. There’s a lot of uncertainty as to what or who will be the fulcrum of that change, but as an industry that has continually fought for its survival, your options are either to connect with the tide or swim against the current. Change will ultimately take you, and your business, to different places. Some of them you never intended to go to in the first place, but now that you’re there, how will you continue to succeed? Find the familiarity, go back to what you do best, and you’ll succeed better than you imagined.
