“Building a brand is like caring for a flower, it’s a delicate process and many things can upset the balance.” - Bliss, Black Label Adult Shop

The lazy geisha first profiled Black Label Adult Shop back in early May just prior to the company’s official launch in June. As I wrote then, Black Label is a different kind of adult retailer, solely specializing in luxury pleasure products intended for the discriminating sensualist. Five months later, Black Label has grown by word of mouth and thru an aggressive push into the blogosphere, and as I discovered, some things have worked, while other things still need some refinement. Bliss (one of the principals of Black Label Adult Shop) is a daring entrepreneur entering a competitive marketplace, guided by a razor sharp business sense, flawless taste, and with a perfectionist’s commitment to delivering her customers the very best.

Arranging the logistics of a trans-global conversation are hard enough, with Black Label being based in Australia and the lazy geisha residing on the eastern seaboard of the United States, so we initially corresponded thru emails to get many of the background questions out of the way, leaving our conversation to talk about things like what exactly defines a luxury sex toy and how that idea is conveyed to the customer. But perfection sometimes has a price… here is what she has to say about the development process of turning her vision into a reality, and the fallout…

“I created Black Label after talking to a few girlfriends about their sex toys (you’d be amazed how many people have them. I move in reasonable social circles and every one of my friends has at least one toy in her drawer!) and thinking that while most of the toys did the job, they all looked kind of tacky.

My background is in advertising, specifically luxury goods, so my thoughts immediately turned to the concept of luxury sex toys that not only worked really well but looked beautiful and were well made. It turned out that sex toys were emerging from the hands of the dirty rain-coat brigade, and appearing in up-market boutique style outlets in Europe and the US and becoming fashion items.

After some research and finding brands like LELO from Sweden, JimmyJane from the US and the Fun Factory from Germany, I decided to take the chance and build Black Label with the intention of making it the Tiffany’s of sex toys - everything sold under the Black Label brand would carry an imprimatur of luxury and quality. We’ve added a few small touches such as every order arrives with a special black velvet bag to keep the toy in, and it was also important that the look, feel and navigation of the site reflected this ambition.

It took 8 months to build and my web developers, having to cope with my rampant perfectionist issues, are now all in therapy!”

While there are many alternatives available to women and couples searching for that something special to bring into the bedroom, Bliss told me that the real genesis of Black Label was a response to a need in the marketplace for a retailer who understood that women increasingly want quality and beautiful aesthetics in every aspect of their lives, including their sex toys – a need which Black Label is clearly answering. We picked up our conversation again by exploring that very topic.

nina: So what led you to consider a business opportunity in selling sex toys, particularly luxury sex toys in what is clearly a very competitive market?

Bliss: I spent years working in the corporate arena then moved into consulting. I brought big company discipline and expertise into small companies such as resorts and spas in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. One pet project which was fun and populated by very eccentric English people, was Sax Leather Australia (a BDSM, Extreme leather bondage outlet – ed.) - We built their site and I spent a few years in between other engagements helping to take it from an on-line start up to one of the world’s leaders in their niche. However consultancy is a heartbreaking business and I found it hard not to get emotionally involved… either it was very successful and I found it hard to walk away when the engagement ended or the clients were morons and I hated myself for working for them… and, while working for other people, at the back of my mind was that I really should have my own on-line property instead of obsessing on other people’s businesses. So I thought I would combine my experience of luxury goods with that gained working on Sax and create a luxury toy site. At the same time articles started appearing about the emergence of luxury toys in mainstream outlets and media… the synchronicity was hard to miss.

nina: Sometimes that’s exactly how it happens. So working for yourself has allowed you to take everything you learned from those experiences and apply it to Black Label. Interesting. I think one of the biggest questions I have is how would you define a luxury item? What makes a product qualify as a luxury sex toy and how does that decision process work?

Bliss: Quality and presentation of the products and integrity of the company. You can just look at the JimmyJane site or at LELO’s packaging and know that they are the real deal. In some ways “luxury” is intangible and it’s not always about the price - so good question. I might have to come back to you on that… Does the company care about the products they make and the integrity of their brand or do they just look for massive mark ups on cheap items? I think that is what I look for.

One of my favourite Deepak Chopra quotes is “make luxury your lifestyle”

nina: There’s definitely a customer who wants and who is willing to pay for the very best, and that barometer of luxury can very often be hard to pin down. What may be luxury for one person may be run of the mill for another, but in my view much of that comes down to pure aesthetics and human psychology. When I first visited your site, I was immediately struck and impressed by those intangibles… the layout and presentation for example. How much do you think your presentation of the products you offer plays in conveying that sense of luxury?

Bliss: I want Black Label customers to go “wow” when they see the site, and the presentation is paramount in a situation where the purchaser can’t touch what they are buying. We then wanted the customer to go “wow this is beautiful” when they open their parcel, before they have even tried the toy.

nina: I think you achieve that goal quite well. As someone who tends to like to shop, and who also tends to like very nice things, I think your online property is exceptional… which leads me to my next question, which is of course about your images and photography. Is that all done in house?

Bliss: Thank you…yes in house to the extent that we art direct, we use a specialist product photographer who is very aligned to our aesthetic and who is a nice person. We photographed everything individually rather than relying on the supplier’s imagery. Here’s a good example if you look at the JimmyJane Little Platinum Vibrator, we only had the shots of the toy with the white background, it wasn’t selling. So we reshot it on the black velvet bag, since then we have sold 5 of them in 6 weeks.

nina: How do you handle or rate the service end of luxury? As you know, the most successful companies which cater to the luxury market survive or fail based on their level of service. Do you also feel that your servicing the customer has to match the luxury items you’re offering, and how do you meet those goals? I think what I’m really asking is if I can buy the same toy from ten different retailers, is that level of luxury service a component of your business model? Do customers get luxury level service to go with their luxury level shopping? Is that part of the Black Label shopping experience?

Bliss: Absolutely the experience has to carry through from first arriving at the site to receipt of the order. We are still working on some elements of this, for instance confirmation emails are generated by our site admin and the payment gateway so they are a little functional in their appearance. However we try to make up for this with little touches like a personalised letter and the velvet bag with each order. If there is the possibility of a delay in fulfillment we write to the customer informing them… we try to make the customer feel cared for. In cases where there is a delay we courier or express the order to the customer and carry the extra cost ourselves. Building a brand is like caring for a flower, it’s a delicate process and many things can upset the balance. I think that going overboard in customer service is entirely warranted!

nina: That’s so important, and I think it separates good companies from not so good companies… how did the idea of including a velvet bag with each purchase come about? (I’ve yet to see one!) but what do they say? And is this another marketing avenue and with it the potential of generating a repeat customer? I’ve always felt that customers form relationships with certain companies because of those intangible perceptions of service. Does the bag play a role in that?

Bliss: Ah yes, you got the Elise directly from LELO. I’ll send you one. It works for both of us…they [the velvet bags] are very pretty, functional, and they carry the Black Label logo and url.

nina: Excellent… so turning the topic a bit… Your company is based in Australia, and the internet has truly allowed merchants to compete in a global marketplace without the restrictions of brick and mortar storefronts. You’ve mentioned in another interview with the Australian press that a strategy of creating connections with customers thru the blogosphere and in internet advertising has played a large part in growing your brand. Can you talk a bit about how this has worked for you and what your approach to making those connections in a Web 2.0 world has developed?

Bliss: We try to present ourselves as a global brand…that being Australian is not necessarily an asset, even though our delivery times to Europe and the US are generally the same as if the customer ordered from their home country – it’s a perception thing really. The Australian market is small (we are very ambitious), and the avenues for marketing here are very limited and very expensive. With Sax we had the luxury of an established brick-and-mortar company with a substantial wholesale client roster so there was time to grow the retail business slowly. Google rankings take time to emerge so we looked for ways to efficiently spread the word - there is nothing like original content so we spent time finding bloggers who we liked, wrote to them and offered products for review. Where possible we also advertised on their sites to return the favour. We have found that there is a wonderful sense of community and collaboration in the blogosphere and if you are patient, polite and authentic in your approach people respond favourably… this approach has been cost effective and produced results, equally importantly it has allowed us to forge relationships with people we like. It’s nice.

nina: I would tend to agree. As someone who has been reviewing sex toys for various outlets since the spring of 2006, there are definitely companies who I enjoy working with and others which are simply not a good fit for what I do. You actually just answered my next question, about the value of forming relationships with independent writers to review your products and promote your site. That relationship process is extremely important in my opinion, and I think it tends to build in an almost viral quality, but then it kind of goes back to the philosophy of ‘everything you need to know about life you learned in kindergarten’ - be nice and respectful to people and for the most part that will be returned to you in kind. So have the reviews, even if it’s a case of multiple people reviewing the same product, but also allowing you to tap multiple voices, been a good thing for black label?

Bliss: Yes it has been exceptionally helpful and I am quite touched and very grateful to people who have taken the time to write about us and our products, but I would do it differently now. I was just getting my feet wet and was (still am) very new to the blogosphere. If I was starting now I would have sent different toys to different people. It was a combination of me absolutely falling in love with the NEA and everyone choosing it to review at the same time. This is beginning to shake out now… so more varied reviews will begin to appear I hope.

nina: That’s a sensible approach. When I first started reviewing sex toys it was (and still is) about trying to give an honest assessment of whatever the particular product was that I was dealing with, and I also recently wrote an article about how much sex toys have changed in seemingly a very short time. I’m always excited to try out a new product and then the process of writing the review for that product is enormously rewarding for me, and that’s also helped me to develop ‘my’ brand. I’ve received tons of emails from people thanking me for my reviews because it allowed them to make an intelligent purchasing decision, so for me, it’s about credibility and integrity and about the lazy geisha brand in particular. You’ve recently started an affiliate program, which I applaud for so many reasons, but how do you anticipate this will help you in developing and promoting the Black Label brand?

Bliss: The affiliate thing has been interesting…essentially all applicants coming in via our affiliate management company’s promotion to their network have been generic list sites and general shopping sites, which I think are largely irrelevant, but it’s a great tool for Black Label to personally offer revenue opportunities to sites such as yours which don’t carry advertising.

nina: Okay… so let’s talk about sex.. most of my girlfriends own at least one vibrator, and I know you’ve discussed this subject in other press interviews, but my question tends to be more big picture…. how do you see attitudes and acceptance of sex toys changing or differing from place to place? The reason I ask this question is because here in the United States, there are six states where it’s illegal to own and or sell sex toys, mostly based on religious objections. Do you see similar issues in Australia or in other parts of the world?

Bliss: (laughter) You would be amazed at the amount of orders I get from Alabama!

nina: (laughing)…Texas too?

Bliss: yup… but Australia is quite possibly one of the most decadent places on earth so no problems here. The challenge here is raising people’s expectations of sex toys but I think that it’s actually a relief for women to find quality…Europe, as I’m sure you know has no issues at all about sex! I am from England, I grew up on a party island in Spain called Ibiza and I lived in Asia for 10 years so I think I have stretched a few envelopes in the sexual experimentation department, although Black Label is a welcome aesthetic relief after working for Sax – I’m not really into leather.

nina: It’s amazing to me that in the 21st century we’re still confronted with such parochial attitudes about our sexuality, and part of what I do is try to break down those walls by encouraging women to explore and rejoice in their femininity. So, entering a business where your product is sex, would tend to suggest that you have very liberal ideas about the subject!

Bliss: Funnily enough… I do have issues about going to the post office with armfuls of parcels. Even though we send everything out in plain envelopes I do live in dread of one of them breaking open in a crowded post office – this is a small town!

I found Bliss to be affable, funny, sharp, and simply a delight to talk to. It’s always amazing when women take control of their own lives and their own destiny by following their dreams and by using their talents. Throughout the rest of our conversation we talked about business, marketing, how to organically grow a website, compared notes on global religion and geopolitics, the blogosphere, traveling to Japan, and our mutual dalliances into the world of BDSM, leather, and other things which made us blush… purely for research purposes.