On a warm Sunday night in July, a lively crowd gathered for a vibrant celebration that was elegant with a touch of kink — a perfect way to honor XR Brands on its 20th anniversary.
Invited guests were whisked away to the Castaway restaurant, which is situated atop a mountainside in Burbank, Calif., overlooking the city, leaving behind the ANME welcome reception that preceded it. The celebration brought together the manufacturer’s customers and other supporters for a nighttime cocktail party that provided a gorgeous spread of food, an open bar and entertainment, including magic, tarot card reading and BDSM-themed caricature drawing. Set against the glittering, picturesque backdrop of the city, XR Brands’ three-tier bondage-themed cake reminded attendees that we were there to honor a BDSM products pioneer — which has seen vast growth since its humble beginnings in a residential garage in 1999.
Every move, decision, partnership and step has landed us right here, right now thankfully continuing to move in a positive trajectory.
Today, XR Brands is one of the leading manufacturers specializing in fetish, kink and BDSM gear. XR Brands is known for its wide array of products with more than 3,000 items and 40 brands — including the innovative Master Series collection, Tom of Finland pleasure tools, and many other collections that run the gamut from thumping toys, bejeweled anal plugs and just about everything in between.
2019 has been a banner year for XR Brands, which kicked off with a 2019 XBIZ Award win for Fetish Line of the Year for its Master Series brand. In February, the company announced the promotion of a handful of its staffers to key positions, which included Rebecca Weinberg — who joined the company in 2013 with more than a decade of industry experience — being named XR Brands president.
In her current role, Weinberg finds herself wearing multiple hats to keep XR Brands on its path toward growth and expansion.
“If I’m not travelling the world visiting with customers, planning, prepping and attending tradeshows, I’m lucky to spend my days in our beautiful Huntington Beach, Calif., corporate office,” Weinberg says of her day-to-day schedule at XR Brands. “I’m extremely hands-on, making sure things run as smooth as possible internally. A good part of my day is spent offering guidance, support and strategic planning to both our internal team and our external team who work remotely. Simply, I’m doing all I can — so our team can do all they can.”
Also climbing the ladder at XR Brands this year was Gerardo Ramos, who was promoted to director of product development, Joanie Lee who was named to the role of mass market and key account sales and Sarai Foster, who was promoted to senior account executive. The team also has grown in recent years, with Amy Barnum coming onboard as marketing manager last year, along with Josh Ortiz, an industry vet who’s now known as XR Brands’ “road warrior” sales representative. Michael Guilfoyle, another experienced adult retail pro, joined the XR Brands family two years ago to serve as the company’s international sales and marketing manager.
“Every move, decision, partnership and step has landed us right here, right now thankfully continuing to move in a positive trajectory,” Weinberg said. “At the end of the day when all is settled, the numbers tell it all. For our team to be able to show double-digit growth year over year in an industry where companies struggle to hold onto market share, I couldn’t be more proud of anything else.”
According to XR Brands CEO and founder Ari Suss, the company was born from his passion for fetish, and it was the popular Master Series line that started it all. “XR identified a need for high-quality, innovative fetish products at affordable pricing,” he said. “We really got our stride about 10 years ago with the launch of our first full line, Master Series.”
In 2019, the Master Series not only took home the XBIZ Award trophy for Fetish Line of the Year, it also went viral in May when Hollywood couple Cara Delevingne and Ashley Benson were caught by paparazzi carrying the Master Series Obedience Extreme Sex Bench into their home.
Weinberg says that the company’s flagship collection is not only the most popular one that XR carries, but it’s also the largest and most hardcore line that XR offers.
“Because I came from a product development background I tend to favor toys not for the pleasure they may give but for how creative or different the item may be,” she said.
Among the latest additions to the Master Series line are new Silicone Lubricant Launchers, which are among the company’s latest innovations.
“Taking a hard plastic item that has been popular for us for years and reinventing it in a way no one in the world has ever done before is what truly delights me about a product,” Weinberg said.
Operating out of its 35,000-square-foot headquarters in Huntington Beach, Calif., with a team of about 75 employees, XR Brands also has a second 10,000-square-foot warehouse for overflow storage. Counting XR’s own brands and private label items, the company stocks beyond 4,000 products. XR Brands’ customers are located all over the world, including Europe, Australia, Africa, Latin America, China, Korea, Japan, Canada and the U.S. While the company’s reach seems pretty expansive as it is, Suss predicts even further growth by the company.
“Although we have seen huge growth over the last few years, we feel strongly that we are just getting started,” he said. “There is so much room for growth for XR.”
While establishing relationships with key distributors worldwide, XR Brands makes the effort to work hand-in-hand with them to introduce their products to retailers and end users. XR Brands equips its adult retail clientele with various support, ranging from training materials, signage, testers, regional trainings, to cooperated road trips and trade shows.
“We are continually listening to feedback from our reps on the road, our customers, and consumers in the community — innovating alongside their requests and ever-changing trends,” Weinberg.
By listening to its customers’ needs, XR Brands also has established itself as a valuable resource for retailers.
“Understanding what the store needs and what their customers need directly from someone that is on the frontline is super valuable information for us manufacturers,” Suss said. “It helps us design everything from point of purchase displays to item reorder tags, signage and sale/spiff programs.”
Customers’ feedback plays a role in XR Brands’ product design. The items that the company creates are designed to creatively address customer needs. Through the years, the company also has developed and harnessed its strengths within product development in order to successfully launch hundreds of items every year.
In his 20 years running XR Brands, Suss says that ecommerce is contributing to the ever-changing and ever-growing nature of the business. “Not to mention worldwide brand awareness has improved so much,” he said. “We receive emails from all over the world looking to purchase our products.”
However, as Weinberg puts it, in today’s internet-driven retail world, “innovation of technology giveth — and surely taketh, too.”
“The advancement in pleasure products is forever expanding — as is the online retail market,” she said. “Brick-and-mortar stores have had to step up their game in customer service, employee education, and community engagement. It’s not enough to simply be the ‘local dildo store’ anymore. Consumers with money to burn are looking for ‘sexual health resources’ within their communities. If retail B&M stores can adapt to that change, they will go into the next 20 years strong.”
As a global brand, XR keeps a watchful eye on the international marketplace. When it comes to the worldwide biz trends, Suss says he sees it vary from region to region, noting that in South Africa and Latin America lower priced items are the most in demand, and in Australia, consumers are warming up to the idea of BDSM. “We have seen much more acceptance there for [more hardcore] items as of late,” he said.
Looking towards the future, Suss says that within the next five years he predicts XR Brands will see even greater expansion on many levels, including more partnerships, a larger facility and improved global availability of its vast array of collections. Weinberg shares his vision, saying that the company’s future can be summed up into three words — innovation, education and inclusivity.
“We hear our customers,” she said. “We are aligning our focus on things like inclusive sex education on the retail level, innovation in design and function of our products with a focus on body-safe materials, eye-catching marketing campaigns, and a continual drive towards the next level of pleasure. I’m excited to see where the next 20 years takes us.”
