It may not be funny, but NicheShop.com's and Boyzshop.com's James Medina says it's just laughable what some novelty companies will actually try to pass off to the gay market.
"We have some great competitors out there, but I still run into a lot of awful excuses for gay sex toy stores," says the man in charge of business development at NicheShops.com and its gay site, BoyzShop.com. "Most are gay splash pages that dump the customer into a straight sex toy store. A lot of them also have female porn star-branded butt plugs and masturbation toys. Any sex toy store is gender-preference neutral unless you choose to make it otherwise. It's the overall experience that makes it straight, gay or neutral, and we feel that if you're going to bill your store as gay, you should follow through."
BoyzShop is an extension of XR, LLC, which was founded by Ari Suss and Kelly Eberhard in 2000 with the launch of eXtremeRestraints.com. That site became one of the biggest online BDSM and fetish gear retailers, and served customers representing a broad range of sexual interests.
"eXtremeRestraints.com was never a tremendously straight store to begin with," Medina says. "From the start, we've focused on fetish, but catered to everyone on the vanilla to kink spectrum. It was really just a natural offshoot to build an all-gay store. We simply selected our gay male-friendly inventory, used only male models to demonstrate items, and wrote the descriptions for gay men. We feel that there are too many sloppily done gay male sex toy stores and thin veneers over straight stores. It just wasn't that hard to do it right."
BoyzShop includes a huge amount of products from various top-name companies. Sex toys, books, DVDs and clothing can be found, with an emphasis on extreme novelties. Products from Manline by Sportsheets, Tantus, Aneros and Nexus are carried (the company also has its own line with StrictLeather.com). The site features product guides and consumer reviews. "Nothing beats hearing a review from someone who has already tried it and gives you an honest opinion," Medina says, adding that their strength has always been in sex toys over other product lines.
"We don't have every color and every variation of every toy, but we do a good job of serving every interest. Our penis jewelry and urethral toys are a strong category that few of our competitors carry. We also have substantial and well-organized bondage gear, impact toys, electrosex, medical toys, enema gear, nipple toys and S&M sections. Of course, we carry all the basics like masturbators, lube, condoms and dildos. In the gay market, more people are open about their sexual preferences, so they're willing to try more extreme things." He adds that they take their own product pictures, preferably with male models for scale, and often alone for detail.
Medina says the site also boasts strong organization and selection. "In our other ventures we've marketed to sexually adventurous men. Gay men are more likely to be open about their sexual interests and willing to experiment. There are plenty of vanilla gay men, but there are simply more gay men willing to try anal play than straight men. However, we do sell a different mix of lubes, more cock rings and overall more penis-oriented products. We also sell a good deal of bondage gear."
He adds that one of their main goals in 2008 is making the webmaster audience more familiar with its affiliate program, and to step up their overall marketing efforts. "More education and more promotion is really where we're focusing at this point.... We are focusing on top-selling items for gay consumers, like the honey pot masturbator," he says, adding a recent promotion offered 50% commission on all sales for the product. "We have the infrastructure in place to grow our sales by 10 times their current level and keep shipping 95 percent of our orders within 24 hours, so it's really just a matter of more advertising."
Medina notes that BoyzShop adds dozens of new products every month. In addition to product line expansion, it also incorporated VOD to increase affiliate sales. "Our affiliate software has also evolved, becoming increasingly more customizable.... If an affiliate would like to sell just sex toys, they can choose to exclude VOD, DVDs or any section or product they find objectionable."
The affiliate program site, NicheShop.com, also includes JennasLoveShop.com. The program has allowed it to form relationships with adult industry giants like Kink.com, Adult Friend Finder and more than a thousand others, Medina says. "Our affiliate program and the ability to brand our store to someone else's site have really had the most impact. Many sites want to capitalize on the gay adult toy market while building their own brand."
CONTACT: BoyzShop.com; NicheShops.com; StrictLeather.com; (866) 363-0676.
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