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Articles by Alex Parker

opinion

Power in Partnerships: The Supplier / Retailer Relationship

Retail isn’t just about moving boxes because the boxes quickly stop moving if your retailers can’t sell them. That happens for many reasons, but lack of support from manufacturers and distributors has the potential to leave a retailer with the wrong stock, or products that don’t capture the end-user’s attention.

Alex Parker ·
opinion

Adrien Lastic Applies European Savoir-Faire to Pleasure Product Designs

It might seem strange to begin a column about an Iberian sex toy company by talking about my family history but bear with me; it will make sense in just a moment. My great grandmother lived in one of the northern ports of England and it was there that she met and had a child with a Spanish fisherman; Maybe that is why I have such an affinity for Spain and the rather unique designer and manufacturer of adult novelties Adrien Lastic.

Alex Parker ·
opinion

How to Prepare for the Next Big Thing in Adult Retail

It’s here, the much-awaited bonanza that is the “Fifty Shades of Grey” movie. Distributors are stocked up, retailers poised and the marketing machine is set to roll selling “Fifty Shades of Grey” merchandise to a public who are curious about BDSM play in a way that they never have been before.

Alex Parker ·
profile

Booming BDSM Market Incites Rapid Growth for U.K.-Based Rouge Garments

There’s room in any market for a range of manufacturers from the “pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” to the luxury and bespoke artisans. Too often in any marketplace the race to the bottom in terms of price and therefore quality is the recourse of organizations trying to make a living.

Alex Parker ·
opinion

Innovating Pleasure Products By Syncing With Mobile Technology

Future gazing is always fraught with danger as in a few years someone is going to read this and have a good old chortle. I’ve done it myself, seeing letters I sent to magazines as a kid, indignant about some development in the field of IT, or how such and such a PC was superior to another.

Alex Parker ·
profile

Beamonstar Products Bringing Booming E-Cig Biz to Adult

Award-winning Beamonstar Products is known industry-wide as the first to bring the booming male sexual enhancement market to adult retailers. Now, Beamonstar is at it again with its recent foray into the e-cig business.

Alex Parker ·
profile

Sh! Women’s Store Playful Revolution

Sometimes identifying a niche can become a lifestyle business that makes a business person a little money and allows them to create a job they can be fulfilled by. But the story of Sh! Women’s Store is a little different; that of a determined woman who found a niche in a male-dominated and at the time very misogynistic industry then carved out sizeable chunk of it for herself and women in general.

Alex Parker ·
opinion

Color Me Mine: Embracing The Diversity of the E.U.

Offering the consumer choice is the key to successful retailing yet choice does not mean 14 different colors of the same vibrator. Or does it? The classic sex toy colors used to be a radioactive “flesh” color that would better be described as orange, the occasional white or gold item and one other color – a dark brown that attempted to replicate African skin. At least that was my experience in the first adult shop I bought from – it was dingy, quite seedy and very limited in what it stocked by today’s standards, so let’s spool forward to 2014.

Alex Parker ·
profile

Electro-Stim Kings: Wayne Allen Talks Business Model and Goals

It’s easy to get bogged down in terrible puns when you start to talk about the intriguing area of adult that is electro-stimulation. So I will try to avoid references to “electrifying sexual experiences” and “sparks of genius.” What’s harder however is to ignore the passion and ingenuity of the people behind E-Stim Systems, a company from Watford, England that designs, manufactures and distributes electro-stimulation equipment.

Alex Parker ·
opinion

Pleasure Products: The Brands of Europe

Whether you want to understand how the European pleasure product industry works or you have decided on entering into this potentially lucrative area, the perception of brands within the E.U. is key to success.

Alex Parker ·
profile

Crossing Over: U.K.-Based Creative Conceptions Expands Into the U.S.

Creative Conceptions nestles in the middle of the U.K. in a town called Newark. An unassuming building in the heart of an industrial estate displays an understated sign informing visitors that they have reached a company that was established more than two decades ago and supplies a diverse range of products to retailers across the U.K. and Europe.

Alex Parker ·
profile

Getting Your Rocks-Off in British Style

The reserved Brit is a stereotype that has all but been debunked by last year’s friendly, colorful and exuberant Olympic Games, and of course by a certain trilogy of monochrome themed books that have made a modest impact on the world of erotic publishing. But you would be mistaken for believing 2012 was the genesis of Britain’s gregarious and adventurous blossoming.

Alex Parker ·