In a well-attended seminar held today at the Sands Expo Center as part of the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, retailers listened to top players in the game address the topic of “The Latest Concepts In Adult Retailing”. On the panel was Hotmovies.com founder Richard Cohen, TLA Video’s straight adult buyer Vanessa Keegan, Devine Distributing head David Kratka, head of the Fairvilla Megastore chain Bill Murphy and Good Vibrations co-founder Carol Queen. Facilitating the panel was AVN Publisher Tim Connelly.
Queen introduced herself by describing Good Vibrations long history and shared how collaborations with novelty manufacturers in creating and branding signature products is helping them reach the wholesale market.
Murphy presented his stores’ “sex is fun” philosophy to the amusement of many present, his belief in the importance of reaching women customers and keeping an open dialogue with customers to best meet their needs and encouraged civic involvement to keep communities supportive of his stores’ presences.
Kratka delivered a spirited talk that drew applause that focused on the necessity of keeping a balance in mark-ups, urging retailers to price their new releases reasonably to support the industry and the production studios, rather than price comps cheaply and put new releases out of the range of most consumers.
Keegan described TLA’s history, their philosophy of stocking as much independently produced product as possible and how their company uses exceptional service to keep customer loyalty.
Cohen presented what his site does—providing full-length streaming adult productions—as the answer for what the future of the industry will be and told adult retailers that they need to find a way to work the technology into their future plans.
During the ending question and answer session, the panel took questions on VOD technology, the future of DVDs as a medium for watching adult material and how to design and market a store to go after a female clientele.
