Online sex toy seller succeeds

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Having closed the first half of 2012 with a 20,000-Turkish Lira turnover, www.sihirlidokunuslar.com.tr is growing successively thanks to the importance it attaches to privacy issues, according to Sonay Onur (L), who began the company along with Selin Keleşer.

Giving up on promising corporate careers for the unknown, two young female entrepreneurs are now enjoying success with Turkey’s first online sex toys sales portal.

Having closed the first half of 2012 with a 20,000-Turkish Lira turnover, www.sihirlidokunuslar.com.tr (TouchTheMagic) is growing successively thanks to the importance it attaches to privacy issues, according to Sonay Onur, who began the company along with Selin Keleşer. The e-commerce company originally targeted female customers but is now offering a rich variety of products for both sexes. “I grew up in Germany and found out after my return to Turkey that the girls here have greater sexual freedom compared to us who live in more closely-knit communities abroad,” Onur said. “But even though they enjoy a greater freedom, sexuality issues are never made public in order not to undermine their image as mothers and brides of the future, I think. Therefore, when we set our minds on this business, I already knew it would prove successful provided that we help them to keep it a secret.”

Duo had a hard time finding quality products in Turkey. “When we say high quality we mean proper health standards. Luckily, we could find distributors of some of the highest-quality products and for the rest, we had to conduct our own imports,” Keleşer. They launched the business in 2010 and finally quit their corporate positions earlier this year to devote their full energy to the e-commerce site.
“The customer responses are impressive. Eighty percent of our customers are male, which is very far from what we thought when we started the business. But it is not that men are doing purchases for themselves. Sometimes they do it on behalf of their wives or girlfriends,” he said.

Best selling items

The portal’s best-selling items are the “We Vibe” clitoral vibrator, which is preferred by couples, Onur said. Tenga male masturbators, penis pumps, and “cockrings,” which result in a longer erection by blocking the main blood vessels on the penis, and The Boss Black Vibrator are the other best-selling items. “Sqweel, a clitoral masturbator consisting of 12 plastic tongues on a rotating wheel, is the best-selling item in our [bachelorette] party category,” Keleşer said.

The company receives orders through multiple means, like live chat on the website, orders by phone and email. “The customers can pay by bank transfer, credit cards and Paypal and cash and credit cards upon delivery,” she said. As part of the company’s care about privacy issues, customers are sent their purchases in anonymous packages or in any kind of package they wish. “We can pack them in a cardboard box which says cosmetics or books. We also send some packages to cargo offices. This method is mostly preferred by customers who even abstain from giving their home or office addresses,” Onur said.

Delivery methods are as diverse as payment and order methods. “The great majority of the purchases made in Istanbul are requested in the form of courier delivery.“ The duo abstains from giving advice to customers who do not know exactly what they need. The website also has a blog which contains explanatory articles on how to use the sex toys on sale while also providing doctors’ views.

The website’s English version is currently under construction, but the call center has a full-time employee for orders from non-Turkish speakers in Turkey. “Our client profile has changed. We have received a lot of orders from non-Turkish speakers,” Onur said.