Does the Spring for Female Sex Toys has come?
This paper summarizes: the awakening of female independence consciousness, the economic rise of yue oneself, driving the status of female consumption power is also rising. This article is one of the topics of "Women's Business Observation" recently. Previously, we talked about women's daily necessities underwear and sanitary napkins. Today, we will directly attack the "women's sex toys" industry and explore the commercial code of women's physiological needs. Chinese women, who used to be shy about sex, are now embracing the "spring" of their sexual experience, and sex toys are making a huge contribution to it.
1. Why are female sex toys more and more accepted?
2, do long-term brand or make quick money?
3. Consumer demand in the new era?
At present, China has become a big demand for sex toys. Under the background of the new era, more and more people have opened up the "pattern" of sexual concept, and no longer talk about sexual change.
For the female group, with the general improvement of education, to a certain extent, it helps women to be liberated in their sexual concepts, and women become more calm in the face of their sexual desires.
When it comes to sex toys, women are no longer embarrassed to talk about them, and the conservative sex culture that oppressed women in the past is gradually breaking down.
With the rise of the female sex toy market, is also quietly rising, the prospect is inestimable.
When women stop talking About sex
What we now refer to as "sex toys" are AIDS that adults use to satisfy their sexual needs, and unlike internal pills such as birth control pills and Viagra, they usually rely on physical effects.
According to CBNDate consumption Big Data, 74% of consumers know and buy sex toys in order to enhance the pleasure and freshness of their partners and thus improve their sexual life quality.
Among them, married people spend far more on sex toys than unmarried people.
The single economy is also a factor that cannot be ignored. According to statistics, there are nearly 220 million single people in China.
Don't underestimate the consumption potential of this group. According to the survey and Analysis Report on China's Sex toy Industry and Consumer Behavior in 2020 released by IMedia Consulting, single consumers buy sex toys more frequently, with nearly half of single users buying sex toys at least once a month.
With the trend of late marriage and late childbearing, there is still a large market penetration space for sex toys.
In the early years, IMedia Predicted that the scale of China's sex e-commerce market will exceed 60 billion yuan in 2020, and the overall market size is expected to exceed 130 billion yuan.
It's also interesting that when it comes to sex toys, a lot of people think of male consumers first.
But in fact, the consumption momentum of the female group is more fierce now, and the joy economy has driven the breakthrough in the field of female sex toys.
According to the relevant data of China Research Institute of Industry, at present, in the supply end of China's adult products market, the market share of female adult products is as high as 80%.
With the awakening of women's independence consciousness, some women pay more attention to the experience of sex, rather than the value of marriage and childbearing brought by sex. It is not uncommon for women to marry and have children at a late age, or even not to marry.
Sex toys, whether married or in a relationship, are increasingly being used by women to address their physical needs or to enhance their sexual experience.
Diverse sex toys for women
From the perspective of the whole sex products market, the product line gradually extends from the original family planning products such as condoms and pregnancy testing products to sex toys.
Compared with the male market, female sex toys are more diversified.
For example, the sex toys used by men are mainly internal drugs such as "Viagra", and auxiliary instruments such as silicone dolls and airplane cups.
Women's sex toys are more subdivided, mainly including utensils, clothing, nursing and internal medicine:
For example, women's assistive devices mainly include vibrators, eggs and lubricating fluid, clothing and accessories mainly including sexy underwear, silk stockings and SM props, health care products mainly including shrinking Yin and breast enlargement and vaginal dumbbells, as well as internal medicine products such as female viagra and contraceptives.
The earliest birth of female sex toys is not related to lust, but as a medical tool.
Vibrators, for example, came from a medical story.
In 19th century Europe, there was a medical phenomenon called hysteria, which is characterized by mood swings, irritability, abnormal behavior, tiredness, listlessness and even depression.
Doctors at the time believed that the disease was mainly caused by women's lack of sexual satisfaction, and the treatment was artificial "pelvic massage".
The one-hour manual treatment was the bane of gynecologists until the advent of the vibrator in the late 19th century.
From the original bulky shape, to the later work more and more exquisite small, some businesses also focused on its unlimited business opportunities, take the opportunity to constantly improve it, and into a special sex toys.
With the development of The Times, all kinds of female sex toys are more perfect in function and appearance, and the price tends to be civilian. It has also become safer, more convenient and more private in use, so it has also spawned this sub-track to speed up fast running.
Compared with foreign countries, the domestic sex toy market did start later, but in recent years, it is also accelerating.
In 1993, China's first sex shop, The Adam and Eve Health Care Center, opened in Beijing, causing a national sensation and attracting media attention and coverage.
This is of great significance to the development of China's sex toy market. "China's first sexual enlightenment" can be described as an official start!
In 2003, China's e-commerce gradually rose, providing a good environment for the growth of sex toys. The Internet process of the whole industry also accelerated, and the traditional retail sales mode was broken.
Between 2003 and 2008, a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises specializing in sex toys sprang up, but at that time the whole industry was filled with low-end products and quality problems emerged.
In 2013, the sex toy industry ushered in a new opportunity, with the bubble of Ma Jiajia, elephant condom liu Kenan and other sex entrepreneurs publicly voiced, so that the public gradually began to pay attention to this secret industry.
Around 2016, capital also targeted this cake to be developed, and the process of industry capitalization accelerated.
After the epidemic in 2020, the sex toy industry in China ushered in a wave of small peak, emerging brands continue to flood into the track.
Up to now, qichumcha data shows that the existing domestic "sex toy" related enterprises have a total of 120,000. In 2020, the number of enterprises registered exploded, with 30,000 enterprises registered throughout the year, up 537.3% year on year.
The competition of the whole sex toy market has been extremely hot, because the threshold is not high, the players have rushed into the race track to seize a piece of the soup.
But the cake is only so big, whether to fight price war to make quick money or to make the brand go on for a long time, this is indeed a problem worth pondering for enterprises.
Why isn't there a giant yet?
From the whole industry, take the road of long-term branding is still a minority, miscellaneous, scattered, small, disorderly is the normal.
At present, low-end products, which are used to price wars, are still the "hegemon" occupying the absolute mainstream position, and these small businesses can seize one-third of the whole market cake.
This is why there have been no giants in the industry for so long.
For a long time, the domestic sex toy market is "bad money drives out good money", small businesses just want to make quick money, so they can only fight at low prices.
This is related to the historical origin. After the reform and opening up, a large number of OEM factories emerged in China. At that time, China became a major producer of sex toys, and most factories played the role of OEM of overseas brands, and nearly 99% of the products produced were sold overseas.
Only in 2008, when the financial crisis caused demand in the U.S. and Europe to plummet, did they begin to shift some of their demand domestically.
It was not until this period that a large number of brands were born in China, but they were still mainly engaged in low-end products. Some small and medium-sized manufacturers originally engaged in molds and toys also flooded into this industry.
Because the price of sex toys is mainly determined by materials, such as vibrators, eggs and other auxiliary tools, the cost of good materials is naturally higher, so in order to compete on price, the production end prefers low-cost products.
As for consumers, when choosing erotic underwear, female consumers usually regard quality as a secondary consideration and style as the top priority. Besides, they change products frequently and are unwilling to invest too much in cost.
In addition, the sex toy industry is quite special, with many restrictions on advertising methods and low-key marketing methods, it is not easy to surge traffic.
Another pain point is that there is rampant "copying" among sex toys, which leads to serious product homogeneity. The industry is faced with rampant copycat and frequent fake and shoddy products.
The lower end of the market has always had its share of the market, and it has brought cheap, explicit stereotypes to consumers.
Fortunately, some brands will rise, ready to catch up, the industry emerged a number of such as drunk breeze, lovers health, Spring hall, NetEase spring, he fun, taohuawu, adult sugar and other brands specializing in sex toys.
They have their own advantages, segmentation direction is also different, especially in the way of operation is very different.
The current brands in the sex toy industry are mainly divided into the old brands with certain reputation and the emerging forces rising in recent years.
For example, Zuiqingfeng, the largest retailer of sex toys on Tmall, not only represents more than 100 brands such as Durex, Okamoto and Jisbon, but also develops its own brands such as Mystery and Fiona.
But revenues from its brands have fallen in recent years, dragging the company down.
Drunken breeze also submitted a prospectus to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in June 2021, but it happened to be the 30th random selection of the list of information disclosure quality of the initial enterprises organized by the Securities Association of China, drunken breeze was also included in the list of random check, so Shanghai Drunken breeze submitted the withdrawal of listing application on July 19 the same year.
Taohuawu, founded in 2009, and Chunshuitang, founded in 2013, represent an earlier batch of sexy brands. It seems that consumer demand across the industry is rising year by year, but these companies have had a tough time in recent years.
Trapped in the dilemma of continuous losses, Taohuawu achieved a net loss of 1,090,100 yuan and 653,600 yuan from 2019 to 2020 respectively, and was put on risk warning on April 26, 2021. Chunshui Hall posted a net loss of 4.0942 million yuan in 2019 and 92,000 yuan in 2020.
Related enterprises once said that making a brand in the sex toy industry is a long-term business, so even if there is a loss in the early stage, we should stick to it, just as the cost of the education market, and expect the volume of sound to expand in the later stage.
And the emerging brand that rises after a few years recently, it is come ferocity more, cannot underestimate.
In March 2021, "Love Action" obtained A+ round financing of 10 million yuan with an valuation of 300 million yuan;
In April 2021, SauceDesign Irrational completed millions of yuan seed round financing;
In September 2021, "Adult Sugar" announced the completion of A round of financing of 250 million yuan.
In particular, Adult candy, a cutting-edge original design sex toy brand, was founded in 2019 and has attracted much attention in the emerging sex toy market.
Adult candy is positioned at the middle and high end white-collar consumers in first-tier cities, and has the core competitiveness in design.
Unlike traditional sex toys, which are made to look like human genitals in a conventional way, the product of adult candy has a fresh connotation, which elevates the quality of the whole product to a higher level.
For example, its beanbird Jumping Eggs, baby seal jumping Eggs and moon pendant products are mainly in warm pink and light yellow colors. The popular beanbird has also won the 2019 German Red Dot Design Award.
Emerging brands such as Adult Sugar and NetEase Chunfeng can better capture the hearts of young female consumers. Besides providing practical product value, they enhance users' emotional precipitation for the brand, which is conducive to the long-term development of the brand.
These sex-toy enterprises that insist on taking the road of branding are constantly emerging in China. Now the whole industry shows two extreme trends of sinking market and high-end market. It remains to be seen whether industry giants can be born in the future.
Unspeakable secret base
When it comes to purchasing channels for sex toys, most consumers are secretive, but they will usually find a "secret base" suitable for long-term purchase after a period of exploration.
At present, there are only two purchasing channels in the mainstream market: online e-commerce platform and offline adult products store.
It's hard not to mention the bellwether of sex toys, the orange adult.
As China's largest adult products chain, it began appearing on the streets of some small cities a decade ago. It's also known as the 7-11 of sex toys, an unmanned self-service store that operates 24 hours a day.
Since entering this industry in 1997, there are now nearly 1000 franchise stores in China.
In the first half of 2019, its parent company, SAN Joorange, had operating revenue of more than 56 million yuan, with a gross profit rate of 54.96%. For a time, it became a hot item for young entrepreneurs to join.
In recent years, the development of e-commerce has become a catalyst for the explosion of the sex toy industry.
Especially with the change of the consumer group structure, the young group gradually entered the adult stage, the young group's sexual concept is more open, the demand for sex toys also increased sharply.
This generation of young people also know more about the Internet, so sex toys entering e-commerce channels will become the mainstream trend. Online shopping targets the pain point of consumers' desire for "privacy protection". Compared with traditional offline stores, online shopping has irreplaceable advantages, which are more private and convenient.
This is especially true for women, who are increasingly open and tolerant of sex toys. But when it comes to sex toys, women find it difficult to talk openly about their needs.
According to iMedia.com, nearly 70% of Chinese adult products consumers purchased through comprehensive e-commerce platforms in 2020, while only 30% purchased adult products through offline channels.
For businesses, whether online or offline channels, this is still a "profiteering" industry.
According to a report by Pricewaterhousecoopers, if merchants purchase through traditional channels, their gross profit margin will be around 100%. If the e-commerce channel, gross margin also has 50%.
Nowadays, with the reverse education of consumers on the market and the demand for high-quality products, more and more sex toy franchisees and manufacturers are gradually moving towards standardization.
Brand owners are also paying more attention to building core competitiveness as they realize that the brand is more valuable in the long run than it is difficult to build.
Sex toy this track, will appear more and more quality players, the future can be expected.
From the overall consumer demand environment, although China's sexual concept is constantly emancipated, compared with men, women are still in a more conservative environment.
China's female sex toy market, its penetration rate is far less than that of Japan and European and American countries, so the prospect is infinite.
Finally, a message to women who are stuck with entrenched stereotypes:
There is no shame in wanting to please yourself and have quality sex, nor is it a betrayal of your partner.
Only when we stop talking about sex and embrace sex toys, will the "spring" of Chinese women really come!
