The biggest selling sex toys at my shop in approximate order of popularity (for both men and women)

Lube (everyone likes astroglide)

Very plain vibrators, nothing special like variable speeds

Butt Plugs or other anal toys (beads)

Poppers

Adult Playing cards (not necessarily a sex toy, but who knows what people use these things for)

Extremely rarely I would sell one of those porn star's own molded pussy and ass. Those things are pretty expensive and some of the "skin-like" materials they are made of involve care to maintain.

In the 2-3 years that I worked at that place I never sold a cock ring or a penis pump or a french tickler.

There is a tremendous variety of adult novelties aimed at men on the market but most of them seem to collect dust in the shops I've been in. My guess is that there are lots of guys who buy sex stuff online. After all, the way some of the sex toys are packages is down right embarrassing.

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I'm sure most sell on the internet. I buy from the internet largely because of anonymity. But I figured enough people must be shopping at brick-n-mortar to keep these places going, and they must be buying to keep stuff stocked.

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Toys don't have to sell at all when you're making money from DVDs, VHSs, magazines, private viewing booths and a few small theaters.

Also the wholesale cost for most adult novelties is VERY cheap and the mark-up is many hundred (sometimes thousands) percent. So even if you have a room full of novelties that aren't moving, the moment someone buys the Christy Canyon (or whoever) pussy and ass for $260.00 many other novelties could be considered paid for.

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I'm not arguing; I just find this all very interesting.

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But I think we did it because a XXX store should have all the XXX stuff it can. You lose potential sales by not carrying a variety of product. Or something to that effect.

Maybe it's worth having something just because your competition also has it? Because it's expected?

Consider this for costs:
A new DVD which we get for a whole sale price of 5.00-7.00$ (I'm pulling these prices out of the air, DVD cost varies based on volume ordered and content, and all sorts of things).

It might retail for 20-25$

But when you consider booth viewing you can "sell" the same DVD to many people over a period of time.

Watching a whole movie (depending on booth size) at my shop was 5-6$. So if you sell viewing time you make tons of money and the product never leaves the store. And you can still sell it for full price later on if someone wants to buy it.

Then on top of that you have rental....

I guess what I am trying to say is porn sells, dolls don't but people expect adult shops to have both. And many people who have no intention of getting a toy still look at them because they are fascinating.

EDIT for an after thought and something you might want to know about the porn buying habits of people:

For some reason Ed powers DVDs are very expensive (comparatively, next to other "high quality" studios like PRIVATE/Pirate) and many customers would rather pay 5 bucks to watch it then the 45 we would charge for the Dirty Debs. stuff on DVD to own. That stuff would make a killing in booth sales because people want to see new girls but nobody wants to pay 45 bucks for shitty Ed Powers stuff on DVD.

Paying retail for porn is a big rip off (at least at the shops in downtown Toronto),

Edited by - conquistador on 5/12/2007 7:59:52 PM

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Edited by - jayo on 5/12/2007 10:14:44 PM

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My shop is close to two military installations, so we get a lot of soldiers and airmen who are being separated from their wives/girlfriends due to the war. They stock up on pocket pussies, magazines and porn before they deploy.

Of course we also cater to gay men, so we sell a lot of dildos, butt plugs and such to them. I've sold several strap-ons to married couples, too.

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That makes sense, re: the military. I knew a military couple, and the wife bought a pocket pal for husband when he shipped out, and some vibes for herself.

Except that my experience with pocket pals has been awful. The newer ones (e.g. Fleshlight) are better, but the original vinyl ones were a huge ripoff. (I was going to say I couldn't imagine anyone buying a second one after the first, but I did (hope springs eternal), so I suppose others would, too.)

Edited by - jayo on 5/13/2007 3:49:27 PM

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