MELBOURNE — “Grey mania” is sparking surging profits for leading Australian adult products retailer AdultShop.com.
Attributing the buying frenzy to EL James’ “mommy porn” bestseller, “Fifty Shades of Grey,” company director Malcolm Day said he hopes the book will do for sex toys what reality TV show MasterChef has done for cooking.
"Our sales have increased almost 40 percent since the book was introduced to the market. We have more and more new customers coming into our stores every day referencing this racy read as their source of inspiration," Day told Australia's The Age.
Day also said Kegel exercisers, which are used by women to strengthen their pelvic muscles to help increase pleasure, have been flying off the shelves in the last year with sales up by 80 percent.
Other pleasure products featured in the book including blindfolds, feather ticklers, riding crops, paddles and handcuffs have also spiked sales upwards of 50 percent.
AdultShop.com spokeswoman Leigh Messer told Australia’s WAtoday.com.au that the erotic fiction trilogy is the "real stimulus package of 2012 for retail."
"It hasn't been a wonderful 12-months for retail however our stores have been doing really well. Since times have been tough we've seen young couples with young families coming in and deciding to make their own fun at home rather than going out, it’s cheaper," Messer said.
She added that more housewives and young mothers are fantasizing about the book’s protagonist Christian Grey and are shopping at Adultshop.com or sending their partners to buy the erotic products.
"Recently we had one guy come in carrying a copy of the book and said ‘I want one of everything that's in there'," she said.
"Let's hope she [EL James] brings out a new book soon and mentions rabbit vibs [sic]."
Erotica may get another boost from Maggie Gyllenhaal's new movie “Hysteria,” a romantic comedy about the creation of vibrators in Victorian times that debuts next week.
According The Age, “Sex and the City” sparked the last sales surge of adult toys in the late '90s thanks to a rabbit vibrator featured in one episode.
Even the book’s bondage "contract" is creating a stir among women seeking relationships.
The Age reported that a U.K dating website that matches young women with sugar daddies conducted a survey among its 1.5 million members and found that nearly 25 percent would be up for a similar relationship.
And no surprise — 90 percent of the men surveyed said they found submissive women exciting.