Mark Franks just left the International Lingerie Show in beautiful Las Vegas and he’s feeling pretty good right now. Franks is the CEO of Castle Megastores and has just received a world of praise about his company from customers and vendors alike. These Castle faithful referred to the stores and their business as the industry standard and the benchmark for how an adult retailer should work.
Castle Megastores now has 17 stores in five states: Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. They’ve been on the adult retail scene for 22 years and rep some of the largest and best stocked stores on the map. Now after pulling in a “Retailer of the Year” chip, Franks can sit on his proverbial throne amongst the Castle and look forward to his company only getting better, always open to expansion and centered around the oath of giving the patrons the most comfortable, informative, and sophisticated experience within each store.
“We’re one of the innovators in the industry. Our stores are very large in square feet. Our stores specialize in women and couples, who in turn provide us with a significant part of our business. We offer, in our view, a superior experience,” Franks boasted. “Castle’s main advantage is our selection. We have very large departments for each specific product, including DVDs, lubes and lotions, novelties, magazines, and performance-enhancing products. We have an abundance of product selection available. None of the Castle stores have ever had peep shows in them. It’s always been a product-run operation.”
With adult businesses becoming less and less taboo, and women sporting retail bags from their local smut peddler as proudly as a Macy’s tote, stores must keep their presentation and level of class at the highest plateau. Every store owner needs to be completely conscious that their clientele is no longer limited to any sort of sexual underbelly. Franks doesn’t just realize this, but is embracing it, and it’s paying off by providing for a large portion of his customers.
“We cater to a clientele where probably 60 percent to 70 percent are women and couples. That is our growing customer base. When you go to a Castle store, you won’t find posters of women with their breasts exposed or their legs spread,” Franks promised.
He is never shy to insist that Castle gives the superior shopping experience. “Also, we have a lot of female employees working in our stores. We are a very diverse company, but for some reason, we attract a lot of women who want to work at Castle. We have a lot of women managers running our stores. As a result, we believe that creates a more comfortable environment for women and couples to ask questions and have a more productive shopping trip. Having the option to ask personal questions with both a male and female sales associate can help with sales and customer satisfaction.”
To be able to enter an adult business and feel comfortable asking the employees about delicate subjects and feel that you’re getting sensitive and educational service will always affect the guest’s overall experience and encourage him or her to buy. Castle takes pride in this attention to customer service.
“We have a very well trained staff. We operate like a big box retailer. We have a professional resource department,” Franks explained. “Every employee at Castle goes through a drug test, a profile test, a full background test. Those are basically prerequisites to even be considered for a position. We do constant training of our large staff. In Phoenix, we’ll sometimes train 200 staff members where we’ll actually have the vendor come in and we’ll have three meetings in one day so that we can have all of our sales associates at our highest standards. We take a proactive position in the people we employee, we train them well, pay them above market wages so that we can keep better employees. It’s always about the quality of the people.”
Castle Megastores began in Phoenix out of a shop designed to look like a castle. The point of the name and the company was to be an atypical porn establishment—a nondescript name to keep the patron comfortable with entering a Castle store, as opposed to a store name with “sex,” “cupid” or “secret” blinking in pink fluorescent lights. Castle expanded into Alaska and grew a store in what had originally been a Sizzler restaurant, which is a fantastic concept all the way around. What did they do with the salad bar?
“Castle is a market chain. If you come down from Alaska, you’ll notice the footprint of that store is different than that of the store in Washington because that is a much larger store; however, you will find the same products,” Franks said. “All our stores contain professional merchandise that is run on a corporate level. Any of our employees could work in any of our locations and know exactly where things are. It’s just like going to McDonald’s. You order a cheeseburger you get the same cheeseburger no matter which McDonald’s you go to.”
Currently Franks and Castle Megastores are participating in an aggressive new arrival program, which will provide consumers with more options in all lines of adult retail than any other chain.
“I buy virtually every new product I see,” he said. “We pretty much buy everything that is out on the market. We’ll bring items into our stores and test them out with our consumer. We pay very close attention to what their reactions are,” he insisted. “Everything we do, we test it and try it before we buy it. It’s the responsibility of Castle to only have the best and safest products available. Castle’s consumers depend on us to get it right. To bring in the right items, the right quality, and the right price points. That’s all part of our ongoing strategy.”
And it has paid off. As well as the innumerous compliments Franks received at the show out in Sin City, on paper Castle is revealed as one of the industry’s leaders, and with its awards, wears the crown of big adult retail.
For more information, visit CastleMegastore.com.
