Shopping online is our new normal. More than just a convenience, with lockdowns and health concerns to contend with, it’s become a necessity for many. The proliferation of mainstream retail marketplaces and shopping aggregators has altered consumer expectations. Gone are the days of spending hours hopping from site to site, researching product options. We’ve grown accustomed to one-stop websites that put at our fingertips the information we need to make smart purchase decisions.
In early 2020, PleasureBase founder and CEO Lance Marks discovered that adult retail hadn't evolved as mainstream ecommerce had. Marks recalls hopping online one day to browse pleasure products.
We wanted to make [PleasureBase] feel Apple-esque, really premium.
“I just found the whole experience to be super overwhelming,” he said. “As a newcomer coming into the space, I was presented with like 300 different sites. Once I would jump onto them, there were heaps of pop-ups and a lot of pornographic content. And I just didn't feel comfortable, or safe, or even trust the websites that I was buying from. So, I thought that this needed to be changed.”
Marks, a former data and technology consultant based in Australia, had a hunch that data analysis would uncover customer solutions and retail opportunities. “Out of curiosity, I started building a database and ordering from these top retailers and just thinking, ‘As a customer, what are the most important things when purchasing from these retailers?’” That’s when the idea for PleasureBase was born. PleasureBase.com is a sexual wellness aggregator and pleasure product marketplace. Shoppers no longer have to wonder if the toy shop they found via Google is reputable, reliable, or competitively priced. The PleasureBase platform allows them to view product photos, descriptions, price comparisons, customer service metrics, plus user reviews imported from across the web on a single webpage. The site also offers educational guides and advice from a team of 40 well-known sexperts, sexologists and sex therapists.
Checkout happens on the site, making shoppers feel like they have completed one transaction even when purchasing from multiple retailers. Marks explains this integrated approach: “When you click ‘Buy Now,’ it adds to the cart on PleasureBase, you check out directly through PleasureBase, and we do all of the backend data management for you. We fulfill the orders with the retailers and the customer doesn't have to worry about anything.”
Along with convenience, consumer comfort is a top priority. “Having open and honest conversations around sex is coming to the mainstream. So, we need to provide a space where people feel safe to come and find these products. And that's really what PleasureBase is founded on.”
Virtual adult shopping can be intimidating, especially to those new to the experience. That, coupled with sexual health stigma, sometimes leads potential customers to give up before they've found what they're looking for. Marks believes PleasureBase’s welcoming aesthetics offset customer uncertainty by conveying trustworthiness within the first few seconds. “We went against the pop-ups and pornographic imagery and went for a super-simple minimalistic design. We wanted to make it feel Apple-esque, really premium.”
Each retail partner featured on the site is PleasureBase-certified and independently evaluated on core pillars of customer experience. These include safety, delivery speed, discretion, customer support, return policy and payment options. Strength in all these areas is used to calculate a unique quality score called a PleasureBase Rating for each retail partner. PleasureBase also requires that all listed products are made from body-safe materials and available on multiple websites. This eliminates the overwhelm of sifting through a sea of unfamiliar, questionable products. Shoppers only see the best of the best — the most popular items from reputable manufacturers.
From a retailer perspective, it’s clear how an adult shopping aggregator can benefit those with the lowest prices — but what about smaller brands? “This is the exact reason why we implemented our rating system,” Mark explains, noting that ranking retailers on attributes other than cost levels the playing field. “If you’re a small retailer you may not have the best prices. But what we know is that these small retailers have the best customer support and also often that their return policies are a lot more lenient; they're happy to provide the customers with this.”
He adds, “By listing on our platform, we almost immediately provide [retailers] with resources to access new audiences. They don't have to invest in marketing. They don't have to invest in tech development. It's all here.” Marks also believes PleasureBase gives smaller retailers a leg up by increasing brand awareness and reputation. “This industry is truly run on emotion and trust. And by providing a platform where we have this PleasureBase certification, retailers can almost mark themselves as ‘Yes, we've been approved, we've been certified.’ That’s a huge bonus for them and also for their customers.”
The site’s success relies on mutual benefit, which is attractive to retailers. “Listing on PleasureBase is completely free. There is no risk at all for our partners; they just have to pass our PleasureBase Certification and they are good to go. If they win, we all win.”
Marks describes it as being akin to an affiliate relationship. “In terms of the fee, we, of course, take a percentage fee from each sale made; the customers do not bear any of the costs. It's purely for us and our retailers. And this fee is generally around 20 percent per sale.”
PleasureBase.com quietly launched in early 2021, focusing on compiling user data, testing various marketing mediums, and refining user experience. To date they’ve partnered with over 30 retailers in Canada, Australia, the U.K. and their largest market, the U.S.
“We're about to go to market and turn on all of our marketing efforts and turn on our traffic. At this point in time, because we've been producing such high-quality content and really working on SEO, our organic traffic and organic growth have been growing exponentially. We've seen our domain authority go from zero to now almost 27, in six months. Wow, really amazing!”
Marks works closely with a diverse, all-women advisory board and trusted lead sexperts. Their larger goal is to destigmatize sexual health and pleasure by following in the footsteps of mainstream ecommerce. “We can see these price comparison and aggregator sites in the flight industry, in the hotel industry, in the fashion industry — it is natural to help push an industry forward.”
According to Marks, PleasureBase is set to be the gold standard for sex-based shopping. “We hope that this is the single source of truth that people can rely on when they're exploring their sexual wellness journey. It's really just about pushing the industry forward, driving it into the mainstream, giving more people access to these products, and creating more of a seamless experience overall for the industry.”
