Thanks to COVID-19, you’ve probably spent more time at home — out of an abundance of caution, or a local mandate.
And while some of us have turned to streaming services, books (remember those!?), or Zoom — it seems a good percentage of us are indulging in ‘self-care’ while in quarantine.
Sex toy sales have surged during the pandemic as hordes of people are steered away from social gathering.
Consider these stats, from the New York Times:
Adam and Eve, a company with franchised locations across North America and an online store, reported a 30 percent increase in online sales in March and April based on the same time period last year.
Other big companies that do most of their sales online also saw an uptick. Wow Tech Group, which owns We-Vibe and Womanizer, reported that online sales for both brands were over 200 percent higher this April compared to last year.
And as Vice reported in April, online sales for products through Cotr Inc, the company behind B-Vibe, Le Wand and the Cowgirl, were roughly three times higher this March than they were last year. Alicia Sinclair, the chief executive, said that the numbers have continued to climb, with April’s sales surpassing March’s by 80 percent.
And while online retailers are experiencing thriving numbers, the same can’t be said for brick-and-mortar shops, who are dramatically more impacted because of the lack of foot traffic due to COVID-19 — if they’re open.
Brick-and-mortar stores have hurdles to face that other online retailers don’t even have to consider, most notably higher prices because of bulk-buy discounts they may not be afforded. The trade-off is more personalized service and other resources, like education, that may not be as readily available clicking ‘Checkout.’
“I don’t think I’m the only one that’s just looking around and going, ‘Can we do this? Can we actually survive, financially?’” asks Beth Liebling of Darling Way in Houston, courtesy of the New York Times.
Some brick-and-mortar locations have turned to sprucing up their online presence to help offset losses from dwindling in-person transactions.
Tactics like this seem sound, especially in light of an ongoing pandemic. But whether they’ll be able to keep all sex toy retailers afloat remains to be seen and may not be known until the pandemic is truly behind us.
