Ten (Actually Fifteen) Questions with Dr. Sandor Gardos

This is an interview with Dr. Sandor Gardos, CEO and staff sexologist of MyPleasure. Sandor is a licensed clinical psychologist and sex therapist as well as a board-certified sexologist. We met recently at a San Francisco Entrepreneurs Organization dinner where I was the keynote speaker.

By the way, I predict that most people will say, “Guy, you were worried about posting this?” and others will say, “I can’t believe you posted this, I’ll never read your blog again.” Just another day in the life of a blogger...I hope this posting helps you figure out the online retailing puzzle.

1. Question: How did you get started selling sex toys?

   Answer: I was a fellow at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York. I was teaching med students, writing research articles, seeing patients, and all that goes along with being a clinical psychologist and sex therapist.

   And I was getting very depressed: Who was really reading what I wrote besides grad students working on their dissertations? Were these physicians really learning everything they needed to treat sexual disorders in a two-day workshop? What about all the patients who had been suffering for years with no idea where to go? I knew there had to be a better way to reach a truly mass-audience with information about sexual health.

   I was always a bit of a geek—I learned to program on a TRS-80—so when the Internet starting reaching mass consciousness, I realized this was going to be THE way that most people would get their sexual information in the future. I wrote a paper on the topic about fifteen years ago in which I predicted things like online dating, chat rooms devoted to special sexual interests, and ubiquitous availability of sex education.

   I should have saved the rejection letters from the journals I submitted it to. I still remember my favorite peer-review: “This is a superb paper and as soon as the Journal of _____ starts publishing science-fiction, it should absolutely be considered.”

   Undeterred, I created the first web site on the Internet that explained what sex therapy was. I even offered a consultation service. This was back in the day when a new website was actually news! So I got a lot of publicity and that led to a string of opportunities being the producer, editor, or “sexpert,” for pretty much every major web site at the time (e.g. Time-Warner’s Pathfinder, About, WebMD, AOL, Excite, Oxygen).

   I do not know how I had such prescience, but I was pessimistic about the whole “content is king” idea, I just never knew how it would pay the bills. So I always had one condition for my employment: if any of my content was ever taken down, all rights had to revert to me. When the bust began, I wound up with over 10,000 articles about sexuality.

   At that time, I was getting over 100,000 emails a week from people with questions and I knew I could not just let all this die. So I began wondering how I could create a “home” for all this great content that was self-supporting. As part of the sex therapist community, I knew that we all of us recommended sex toys for our patients, but we were always struggling with where to refer people. So I had this vision: What if we combined all this great educational information with a truly superior e-commerce experience?

   I handpicked my team from the best and brightest from all the failing dot-coms and told them to “pretend Nordstrom just decided to launch an online sex toy store and make that!” I guess we touched a chord. After over five years in business, we are currently the largest online retailer of sex toys in the U.S. and the most visited sex education website.

2. Question: Who is the “G spot” of your market—so to speak?

   Answer: Our “average” customer is a married woman in her late thirties with two or three children, living in the Mid-West; going to church on Sundays, and is bored out of her mind with her sex life! Generally, she is buying something to share with her partner to add some “spice” to their relationship. Our second largest group is men buying something as a gift for their partner. You should see the spike in our sales around Valentine’s Day!

   We get all ages, genders, and orientations, etc., but we have always been the “safe and credible” place to learn about sexuality and buy things to enhance one’s sex life. We devote extra care in selecting and developing what we sell, making sure it is packaged attractively and discreetly, having friendly customer service staff, and the like. That appeals to many people, but others could care less and just want the cheapest and biggest “rubber dong” they can find. We tend to send those folks to other sites.

3. Question: How do sales vary by country and state?

   Answer: We tend to do exceptionally well in the “red states.” At first, we were a little surprised by this, but this actually makes a lot of sense. If you are living in a conservative community in the South, for example, and you want something to enhance your relationship, where exactly are you going to go? Even if there is an “adult bookstore” or something of the kind in your state, it is probably quite a drive and most likely in a bad part of town, and you are unlikely to find a sales person who actually knows anything about the products or you would want to talk to. Also, you probably want to avoid running into your neighbor or your minister.

4. Question: What are your most popular products?

   Answer: Dual-action, “rabbit-style” vibrators—hands down—no pun intended! Ever since the Pearl Rabbit showed up on Sex and the City, we have trouble keeping them in stock.

5. Question: What does this say about the sex lives of people who shop online?

   Answer: I don’t think the sex lives of those who shop online are any different from anyone else. I hear the same questions, the same desires, as in any other setting that I have worked in. About the only thing different is that these folks have taken an active step to actually *do* something to improve their sex lives. Many people just live in silent misery.

6. Question: Does the government try to regulate your activities?

   Answer: Not yet, but you have to realize that the sale of sex toys is still illegal in eight states. It is just silly. I was the expert witness in all the cases in Georgia—a state where you could get a gun at any pawn shop without a waiting period, but the sale of anything “designed to stimulate the human genital organs” was a serious crime. As a matter of principle, we ship to *all* states.

7. Question: What’s your advice to a woman buying her first vibrator?

   Answer: We actually have a number of articles about that on the site and a whole department and buying guide because it really depends on the particulars. But basically I would recommend starting with something smaller, gentler and more discreet. Begin with something that you use externally only. If it doesn’t work out, it might make a great neck massager; besides, you can always upgrade.

8. Question: What’s the role, present and future, of the Internet in people’s sex lives?

   Answer: Wow, that a big topic! I used to teach a course on that at SFSU. I think the greatest impact has to be the ease of finding information about any topic, no matter how taboo, in the privacy of your own home. I remember a patient I had many, many years ago who had a fetish for watching women blow up balloons. This was the first time I, or anyone in the clinic, had ever come across this. In fact, after an extensive literature search that turned up nothing, we wrote a case study on him. Today, there are literally hundreds of websites devoted to this (usually) harmless interest. This man was driven to the verge of suicide thinking he was such a freak. I wonder if he would even need therapy today.

9. Question: Do you have a lot of repeat business?

   Answer: Most definitely. As we all know from the research, when people have a good shopping experience online, they tend to be very loyal to a site. I’d say our most devoted customers are the ones who didn’t read all our articles, reviews, and buying guides and made an “impulse buy” and were disappointed that it didn’t work the way they wanted. Once they get on the phone with one of our experts and are able to exchange it for a product that really works for them, they begin to tell all their friends about us.

   You also have to remember that a vibrator is not something you buy once and are done with it. That would be like ordering a really good pizza and deciding to never eat anything else again!

   [Guy: This will change how I look at pizza for the rest of my life.]

   Also, the first email we ever received from a customer was a woman in her early nineties. Her husband had passed away over ten years ago and she was feeling very lonely but didn’t want to get back into the dating scene. So she decided to search on the Internet for a sex toy but was so repulsed by all the sites she came across that she abandoned the idea. Years later, while doing a search for articles about sexuality and aging, she came across MyPleasure.

   She read some of our content, then looked through our “sex and disabilities” product guide and decided to give something a try. The reason she said she felt compelled to contact us was that, despite having had a wonderful relationship with her husband, she just made an amazing discovery: she never actually had an orgasm before! She was writing to thank us for allowing her to have that experience before she died.

   I printed that email out and it is still tacked to my wall. Whenever I feel discouraged, I just look at that note and it reminds me why we do what we do.

10. Question: What can an ecommerce startup learn from your experiences selling sex toys online?

    Answer: Find a niche that is currently under-served in the way you want to serve them. Then, continue to mine the data, listen to your customers, and keep creating ever more experiences that are *amazing* for them. Also, stop thinking that you are selling a product—that puts you into commoditization and the only thing you can compete on is price. You are selling a *solution* to a problem that your customer may not even know they had. Finally, forget about all the latest trends and gee-whiz technology; if it doesn’t really help the majority of your customers, it is worthless or worse.

11. Question: Are your day-to-day issues any different from what Amazon faces?

    Answer: Many of the basics are no different. I attend all the e-commerce tradeshows and sit on the board of some of the largest internet companies in the world – I am even on the board of the Entrepreneur’s Organization, the world’s largest organization of successful independent companies, and it sometimes strikes me how *little* difference there is between us and most other corporations. I think the only big issue is the stigma that still exists.

    It doesn’t matter how many awards we’ve gotten, how many degrees I have, or how ethical our business practices are, or even that we have a proven business model that has shown profitable growth for over five years – I still find it hard to meet an investor willing to talk to us.

12. Question: Have you considered a strategic alliance with Energizer or Duracell?

    Answer: Funny you should ask. This is where we start to diverge from places like Amazon.com. We sell far more batteries than any manufacturer (not naming names that might start with an E or D) requires for a wholesale arrangement. But, every time they see our site, they tell us we can’t buy direct.

13. Question: Besides “with rubber gloves,” how do you handle returns?

    Answer: People always ask that because we are one of the only sites with a satisfaction guarantee. The short answer is: “No, we do not resell used toys!” To be on the safe side, we use what in hospitals is called “universal precautions.” Basically, anyone who handles returns is trained to approach them on the assumption that the items are potentially infectious. So gloves are mandatory, but the good news is that since we just dispose of the returns, our employees don’t have to do much handling. They just dump them into a bio-hazard container that gets picked up once a week.

14. Question: Do you ever get orders from famous people?

    Answer: We have the most rigorous privacy and security policies in the industry. The only time I find out someone famous uses our site is when I bump into them at a party and they start raving about how great we are.

15. Question: What do your parents think about what you do?

    Answer: About three years ago, I had a very uncomfortable moment when my mom said, “Son, you know how proud your Dad and I are of what you do and how we tape EVERY appearance you have on television to show our friends, right?” It was at this point I knew we were headed in a bad direction! “I guess the only question we have is why would you devote your life to something that people do for maybe fifteen minutes a month?”

    At that moment, I realized I suddenly knew FAR too much about my parents and never talked about my career with them again.

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Comments

[Lois Forman]

Please sign me up so that I have online access to your products.

Lois-

To subscribe to Guy's blog:
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=18624

Mary-Louise

[Igor M. (BizMord Marketing Blog)]

Very interesting post. Some people read this kind of content and get insulted or offended. A true marketer / entrepreneur will see the bigger picture.

Underserved industry made into a great resource and a buy it place. Think about it ... can people actually go to these stores and then ask questions on what is a good toy and what is a bad one. Buying it online is an excellent idea.

[alex]

Extremely interesting post. Good food for thought that prompted me to write a post on my blog about this.

I have personally always thought that with the business of sex being so successful on the Internet, there are probably many lessons to be learnt for marketers in other industries... which of course is not a suggestion that marketers should now start surfing on sex sites while at the office ;-)

[Susan Claire]

Great Post Guy!

I am a bit curious about two things:
What are the eight states where the sale of sex toys are illegal?
Does that mean Mypleasure can't ship to them?

Thanks

[Adee Feinstein]

Guy -

20% discount? Perhaps you're on to something here. Us "Garageheads" represent some considerable purchasing power - let's have a membership card (I challenge fellow readers to suggest a logo) and let's do some damage! You want the coveted #1 Technorati spot? Convince Starbucks to give members in good standing %10 off our latte's...

[Dr. Sandor Gardos]

Hi, this is Dr. Sandor Gardos. Thank you all for the comments and support.

I did want to answer one question that was raised: if you do a search on various terms on assorted search engines, we DO actually appear on the first few pages in most cases. Unfortunately, we have become victims of our own success, so we try to pick our terms very carefully to optimize for organic and paid positioning. So, for example, if you search for "sex toys for women" in Google, you'll see we have the first two organic positions and also the first or second paid (depending on time of day).

We also do a fair amount of additional forms of marketing, but at this point, most of our customers are repeat buyers or find us by word of mouth!

On a completely separate note: Guy asked me if I could provide a special promotional discount for readers of this blog. Simply go to MyPleasure and type in "garage" (without the quotation marks) in the Promo Code box in the shopping cart and you'll get 20% off your purchase. Enjoy!

[Guy's Angry Fan Placated]

And Guy did caution us before posting the interview. I totally missed that entry bacause I forgot to check the updates in my RSS reader (MyYahoo)! For some reason I like to come to this site rather than reading the feeds.

[Guy's Angry Fan Placated]

You don't understand, do you? I am neither from the US nor from Europe. I am from a tiny country in South Asia called 'Bangladesh'. I hope now you get it!

[Morgan]

How is "sex" an extreme? Sex is everywhere you look. Everyone you see, meet, and encounter is the result of successful sexual reproduction. Sex should be the first thing on your mind. ;)

And who are these people from Europe claiming that sex toys are unthinkable... in Europe? Of all places, Europe. Enough said. Get out of the closet and do your research.

[Guy's Angry Fan]

Guy, I am Sorry. I got carried away and posted that the 3rd comment below. I am actually never going to stop reading either your books or your blog(s).
And for the other readers' information, I am not from the US so there is no need to start a US - Europe sex-fight. I think both of you are equally open to sex...:)
It's just that the idea of sex toys is unthinkable in our culture. But I don't think there are many readers of this blog from my country and I am ready to read whatever is posted.
Keep going Guy and "Kick Butt!"

[Thank you]

This posting is an excellent source of wisdom. As an aspiring entrepreneur I can only admire how far has this man come. Especially interesting for me was the part where he was talking about his main stream of customers and what drives his sales. Excellent! Guy, thank you for posting this.

[W.P. Wily]

Gerald -- Question 13 specifically handles returns.

A Fan of Guy... -- Thanks for the Euro-trash drive-by swipe at American politics. Next time, you might want to spell-check some, otherwise you might look "retarted". The great thing about America is exactly that we don't have a "ruling class", since we've seen how well it works in your little insignificant decaying countries.

[K]

As a businesswoman who writes business based romances, I am hearing the lack of respect thing loud and clear.

Write a pure business book and I'd get respect.

Write the same business ideas into a solid storyline with yes, some hot sex, and all of a sudden, its trash.

Double standards all over the place.

[Richard A. Muscat]

Hi Guy,

Great post there. Although the subject may be 'unusual' for entrepreneurial literature it may actually serve a dual purpose to some of us (aspiring) entrepreneurs: to not get stuck in the 'status quo' rut but always keep our eyes open because opportunities can crop up everywhere! It would be silly from an entrepreneurial point of view to ditch opportunities because we don't understand the market in question -- this sex perspective might be at an "extreme" end of the opoprtunity spectrum but it serves as an eye-opener all the more for that.

On a separate note, I would have a question about selling: I ran several Google searches for "sex toys" and "sexual advice" and mypleasure.com never came up in the first few pages ... how does this site reach its customers?

Cheers,
Richard

Malta - Europe

[ann michael]

Great interview and awesome insights. I completely agree with John Dodds.

Also, while I know the readership here is worldwide, it's nice to see the predominant response to this post is positive (maybe there's hope for us in the US after all)!

[Gerald Buckley]

OK, is it just me... or did the good doctor mention returns and upgrades?

Please, tell me they don't put those goods back into circulation. THERE is a good 16th question for you Mr. K! :)

Gerald in (oops... a blue state)

[A+]

Great blog,
Its good to shake up pre concieved notions of what an entrepreneur is and that "Art of the Start" applies to more than one business category
(Of course, I would love to see their powerpoint presentation)

[Jon Cantin]

We are sexual beings... GET OVER IT! Sex is fun and should be practiced as often as possible (in a safe manner). There is NOTHING sick, disgusting or degrading about sex. It is also great physical exercise!

You have people dying everyday, all around the world due to war, disease and persecution yet some people take the moral high ground and tell Guy not to write about anything "Sexual" on his blog... get a life!

If you replace every sexual phrase in the blog with one about vegetables, you can find the wisdom without your hidden desires getting in the way ;-)

Great Post Guy, keep it up! (the blogging that is)

Jon
Founder of myfoodcount.com
Free & Anonymous Health Monitoring
Life: jon.legendarylife.com

[John Dodds]

The subject matter is getting in the way of some real wisdom here.

Question 10 tells us pretty much all we need to know about meeting customer needs and question 12 shows how dangerous resistance to change is for mainstream businesses in a disruptive world.

[A fan of Guy and all he will publish]

Being from Europe I sometimes wonder what in the world people in the US habe a problem with the word sex and foremost with the activity itself. I mean, they create tv shows like "Sex and the city", "Nip/tuck" and so on. Watching them they do sex all over, but on the other hand a post like this has to have a warning and people stop reading this blog because of a harmelss interview?

Sorry, but just like a retarted, ex alcoholic can become president and a austrian body builder a governor this is a complete joke.

[M.P.]

From an European point of view it's really amazing the way some USA citizens feel about sex, sex toys and so on... To me it's just a very good (and useful) interview from someone with a sucessful business on the internet.
Thank you again Guy for your blog!!

[tim]

Great post.

[Aner Ravon]

Great post. And one that got me in writing mode.

[Brad Hutchings]

Since others are going to take you to task for this... That was quite interesting. For contrast, I note a story on cnet's news.com this evening by Declan McCullagh on all the ways Congress is figuring out how to screw up the Internet and everyone's privacy in the name of "stopping" child porn:

http://tinyurl.com/pdvrh

I doubt child porn would be 1/10 the problem it seems to be if people generally had healthier attitudes about sexuality. If you can read that interview, visit mypleasure.com for 5 minutes, and then conclude that this is just smut, just look in the mirror to see the problem. This is far less intrusive and in-your-face and likely far healthier than a typical freshman orientation at your favorite college. If this is a "values" question for you, please take a look at the whole landscape and pick your battles and your allies wisely instead of tilting at windmills.

[Vijay]

Wonderful interview and useful insights.

Dr. Sandor Gardos is really impressive with his answers.