Upselling body healthy luxury toys, in general, tends to be much easier in a brick and mortar store. When you have sales people interacting with your customers you have the edge. It becomes a lot more difficult in e-commerce because if your customer comes to your site looking for a giant blue jelly dong that’s most likely what they’re going to leave with.

But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have options. There are four areas that you can focus on to help upsell in a sex positive way through your e-commerce store:

1. Reputation and branding
2. Education and Customer service
3. Variety
4. Cross selling

If you are known for selling high end toys that is what you will sell. If you are known for selling cheap jelly toys that is what people will expect from you. Your brand – the image you project and the demographic you attract with that image will dictate what you can and cannot sell. This is influenced by everything from the images and copy you choose to display on your website to how you interact through social media. Watch closely how you talk about sex, people’s bodies, and the products you’re selling. You can’t use the same kind of language to sell a 12 inch dong as you do for a $200 luxury vibrator.

If you’re not currently projecting the image of a store where customers will come for luxury sex toys you should know that you can change your image, but only if you’re willing to put in the work to make that happen. As sex toys become accepted in the mainstream more and more customers are becoming more educated and are choosing to shop with companies that reflect their views of sex toys as normal and healthy. If you speak about the toys you’re selling in a misogynistic or degrading way you will turn off many of your higher end customers.

So how do you create a brand that’s good for selling luxury products? Educate your customers. Dedicating your site to sexual education shows that you care about your customers. You see them as more than dollar signs. You have a vested interest in their sexual health. Tell them what products are made of and what the pros and cons are of those materials. Point them towards the products that are more body healthy. There are numerous ways of doing this including creating a materials and ingredients page that product pages hyperlink to, making product videos (or using videos made by the manufacturers) to highlight the body healthy toys, creating a body healthy toys and lube category that is easy to find on your homepage and can easily be linked to by your affiliates, if you have bloggers writing
reviews for you encourage them to also write a short review on the product page, include staff reviews and picks, and offer easily accessible customer service with a representative who is knowledgeable. Just because you are online doesn’t mean you can’t interact with your customers. Offer instant messaging and make your 800 number visible on every page.

Education is important and you will change some people’s minds and teach them how to better take care of their bodies, but sometimes people just want a cheap blue jelly dong and if you don’t sell it they’ll get it somewhere else. This is why it’s so important to offer variety to your customers.

Make it very known which products are safer than others, but leave the decision making up to your customers. You’ve informed them, now let them make their choice. For truly dangerous products like anal desensitizers this may not be the best option, but a jelly toy that is packed full of phthalates and BPA doesn’t have to be harmful if your customers use a barrier to protect themselves. But you have to inform them that this is the best option.

That’s why cross selling is so important. Not everyone can afford a $100 100% pure medical grade silicone dildo and to presume to know what’s best for your customer is patronizing them. If they can’t afford it, they can’t afford it. It doesn’t matter that that dildo will last them a lifetime unless you can offer them monthly installment plans. But they can afford to buy a $20 dildo and put a condom on it every time they use it. Yes, this will cost them more money in the long run, but they shouldn’t have to choose between food and a dildo. The same goes for people who are inexperienced. If you’re just learning to cook you don’t go out and buy the pots and pans of professionals because they’re too expensive. Yes, your food might taste better coming out of those professional pans and they might last 20 years, but if you’re not even sure you like cooking you’re going to opt to buy the $20 set from Target. The same goes for sex toys. Most people aren’t going to drop $100 on their first sex toy and you shouldn’t push them into it. Instead educate them on what options are available in their price range. There are many body healthy options made from ABS plastic that are much more affordable or they can always use a barrier between their sex toys and them. Making your customer happy is more important than upselling because that college student who can only afford the $20 dildo is more likely to come back when they have more money because they had a good experience with you. By being honest with your customers and selling to them based off of their interests instead of their insecurities they will feel safer buying from you and you will create loyalty.

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This post, Sex Positive Upselling Online, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 07/14/2011. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Sex Positive Upselling Online. Thanks for visiting!
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This post, Radio Topics?, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 11/15/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Radio Topics?. Thanks for visiting!
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But you know what strikes me most about this pyramid? We reliably teach our children everything on that pyramid except for sex and sexual intimacy which are at levels one and levels three respectively. Or at least we try to teach them all of those other things. As a kid I attended self confidence workshops, learned problem solving and critical thinking starting as young as 10, learned the importance of friendship in kindergarten, and was potty trained at some point before I even started forming memories.

With few exceptions, people seem to want to teach their kids everything to fill the hierarchy of needs. Why is it that we leave a huge blank spot on sex and sexual intimacy?

Now, I was lucky, don’t get me wrong. I was one of the exceptions because I grew up in a sex positive household … or I should say that I half grew up in a sex positive household. I am the child of divorced parents who had joint custody of me until I was 15. I went between the two houses every couple of weeks. The two houses that thought very differently about sex.

For two weeks at my mother’s house I could ask whatever questions I wanted. I knew where babies came from when I was 5. My mother yelled at me to go rub one off when I was 9 and in a particularly pissy mood. When I got older and had questions that were too uncomfortable to ask her, she started hiding sex ed books in the bookcase for me to find. I still own the first edition to the Guide to Getting it On. At 14 my mother started putting condoms in my bathroom just in case. I wasn’t having sex yet, but she wanted me to be prepared if I was. By the time I was 16 I was having both boys and girls sleep over and my mother knew I was bisexual and knew we were fooling around. The first time I heard my mother have sex I was 8. I continued to see evidence of her sex life the entire time that I lived with her and while it wasn’t always a comfortable thing to see, it was evidence that sex and sexuality was a normal part of life.

For two weeks at my father’s house, sex was not a topic of conversation. If I even brought it up it was usually brushed off rather quickly and I was told to wait to have sex until I was in college. He slept in a separate bed from his live-in-girlfriend on a different floor of the house. But at the same time my father ogled every sexy woman on TV and hid pornography in the house.

So I learned about sexuality in two different households that were very opposed, which was pretty much how it went for every rule and moral I ever learned. I was left to figure it out for myself, which sometimes led to a serious lack of morals in certain cases.

I also did have sex education in school. It wasn’t much although the clitoris was listed on the diagrams of female genitalia. They sort of taught about it and it wasn’t until I was out of high school that I realized how rare that was. I went to college late and got to hear all the horror stories of people who went through abstinence only education in the Bush years. Comparing girls who had sex with dirty tape, sucked on lollypops, roses with no more petals.

I was one of the lucky ones. It’s funny to say that considering the fact that I’ve been pregnant twice and have had 3 STIs. I learned all the technical stuff. I knew about condoms and birth control. I even learned how to negotiate such things from attending PRIDE youth groups starting at age 15. But what I didn’t learn was the emotional side of sex. I didn’t learn about intimacy. I didn’t learn about all of the other stuff that goes along with sex and how that could effect me. This is something I’m still working on to this day.

But you know what? It’s a lot like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I’m lucky, I learned about sex which is at the 1st level, the most crucial level. But I’m still trying to figure out sexual intimacy. Others are still at level one. In my line of work I meet a lot of people who experience sexual problems. I’ve met women who have never had orgasms. I met one woman who was 28 and didn’t know where her clitoris was. I’ve met women who think that they urinate out of their vaginas. I’ve met men who think that their penis is supposed to bring absolute pleasure and they are confused and depressed when it does not. A lot of these people are struggling with level one because they received even less of an education than I did. They learned all the names of the bones of the body, but no one bothered to teach them the proper names for the body parts that create pleasure.

Sex is one of the most important things we do in life. It is one of our biggest driving forces. The drive to procreate, the drive to feel close to someone, the drive to feel pleasure, the drive to feel accepted, the drive to feel secure, the drive to feel attractive, the drive to ignore all other things in life. Sex is a number one level need and yet we don’t talk about it. We don’t teach about it. Can you imagine if we did the same thing for any other level one need? If we didn’t teach about sleeping or breathing or eating?

That’s why we need comprehensive sex ed and that is why it is so important to have sites like Scarleteen. That is why it is so important for folks to donate to Scarleteen because it is one of the very few resources out there for youngins who are trying to navigate their sexuality. And it is so important to donate because Scarleteen will not survive without your donations.

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This post, Scarleteen Blog Carnival: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 10/27/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Scarleteen Blog Carnival: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Thanks for visiting!
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This post, National Sexual Freedom Day, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 09/23/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: National Sexual Freedom Day. Thanks for visiting!
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Kink Academy is a website which features videos of sex educators (Lee Harrington, Sarah Sloane, Cecilia Tan, Dr. Ruthie, Eve Minax, Jay Wiseman, and Megan Andelloux to name a few) talking about different sexual techniques and sometimes demonstrating those techniques. The educational information ranges from beginner stuff like intro to fellatio, what to expect from a pelvic exam, and how to stimulate the g-spot to more advanced techniques like fire play, catheter use and violet wands.

Even though this site contains beginner lessons, I do not recommend this site for beginners who are not interested in kink. This site will probably scare the bejeezus out of most vanilla types as it does tend to focus more on very kinky play. I DO recommend this site for those of you who are just starting to play with kink as well as those who are more experienced. This is a site for people who are very into or interested in BDSM, role playing, fetish gear, medical play, polyamory, and sex toys. As someone who isn’t too knowledgeable about these things, but is really into learning about them, I found the videos to be very informative and interesting.

Most of the presenters in the videos are engaging and interesting to watch. However, there are a few people who are a little awkward. Hopefully they will get better with practice.

There are new updates fairly regularly. It looks like the videos get uploaded about every other day. So if you were to get a month long membership you’d have access to all of the hundreds of current videos plus about 15 new ones during that time period. Although, once you see what they have to offer I wouldn’t be surprised if you wanted to stick around.

Kink Academy is fairly new so there are some issues with the website that could probably use ironing out. The navigation could use a little bit of work. It would be nice if they could figure out different ways to break down the video topics so that the viewer could access them more easily. This includes taking a look at what items they deem to be beginner lessons. And I’d like to be able to click on topics on the front page as well such as “Ask the Headmistress.” I can easily click on the current question being asked, but I want to be able to click on the banner and be brought to all of the questions.

I’d also like to see them develop the community a little better. They have a forum on the website that isn’t especially active and members have the ability to make comments on different videos. I’d like to see the option for members to create a profile on the website. Currently, if you click on a person’s avatar it brings you to their website if they choose to have it do so. Otherwise you can’t click on anything at all. Instead, I’d like to see a full profile that also contains links to their website if they choose. I think it would foster more communication between members and get the community more interested in participating.

At $9.95 per month this kind of education is a steal. To take all of these classes from all of these well versed sex educators or to read books with this material would take a lot of time and money.

Check out their free videos to get a sampling.

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This post, Kink Academy Review, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 06/02/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Kink Academy Review. Thanks for visiting!
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That being said though, I need to put out a call for writers. I’m specifically looking for sex positive sex educators and erotica writers. Do you want to write books or short stories, but don’t want to go through the hassle of trying to find a publisher? Contact me! I want to work with you.

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This post, Calling Writers, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 05/01/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Calling Writers. Thanks for visiting!
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