Between Amazon’s “buy it now, get it yesterday” mission, a glut of portals selling the same product and a little ol’ pandemic, being in any retail business these days can be difficult, to say the least. If you’re selling adult products, add in slip-sliding cultural mores and the Herculean challenge of taming the triple-headed beast of modern commerce: invention, reinvention and retention.
John Perkes, owner and founder of PalmPleasures.com, manages to handle that growling beast, finding a way to satisfy and keep customers with the quality and service he has always prided himself on — and now with his website’s recent relaunch.
We think it is time to set the standard on customer experience.
“Change is inevitable, and this change is a long time coming,” said Perkes. “After focusing on third-party channels such as Amazon and Walmart, we decided to put much more attention on our website and offer what we feel many of the customer-facing websites are missing ... We think it is time to set the standard on customer experience. We aren’t going to have thousands upon thousands of items in our catalog. A lot of our time has been spent analyzing different products and putting together a curated catalog of what we feel are the best of the best.”
Since starting PalmPleasures.com in 2016, Perkes says, he has always kept his eye on offering his buying public that “best of the best.” Even before that, when he was still working in a business many steps removed from adult products — Perkes spent much of his professional life in the funeral industry, both as a funeral director and funeral home owner — he recognized that the online world was growing, and knew he wanted to be a part of it.
In any business, mentoring, networking and especially friendships pay dividends, and Perkes was able to learn what he could from an influential player in the pleasure products industry.
“It just so happened Entrenue was close to us. Meeting its owner, Joe Casella, was a game change, and I will forever owe him for the guidance and friendship he has offered us over the years.”
Perkes built PalmPleasures into a successful specialty online retailer representing multiple brands exclusively on third-party channels. The company also developed its own product line, created specifically for online sales only. “When we began, it was almost like the Wild West, with many brands telling us they didn’t allow third-party sales or just pretending it didn’t exist. We have seen a lot of evolution in this over the years, especially with specific Minimum Advertised Price policies — and if brands still don’t have this, we would strongly encourage them to do so! We quickly found our niche in third-party channels like Amazon and Walmart.”
Perkes is also very attuned to the crucial elements that can make any retail website succeed or fail, most especially pleasure product portals. He says today’s consumers are “interactive shopping” when buying items online for their most intimate encounters. Exploring the “a picture is worth a thousand words” axiom to its logical extreme, he says, “One thing that we have invested a lot of time and capital in is the ability to take 360-degree photos. Think the Carvana shopping experience. We are excited for the customer not to have to rely on the same stock photos that every website uses and have a more interactive shopping experience.”
Turning to the challenges of the global pandemic, Perkes says PalmPleasures.com was hit hard in two main areas: occasionally losing employees to quarantine, and supply chain issues: “The supply chain being a lot slower than before is something we are all still getting used to.” On the upside, Perkes notes, “A limited supply on some items makes them faster movers when they do come in stock.”
Like any online seller looking to make major strides, PalmPleasures.com partners with social media influencers, and with the relaunch, the company has increased its efforts, finding friends in many places. It currently employs influencers across a multitude of platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and even OnlyFans. Perkes’ model here is one that many companies see fit to adopt: reaching far and wide through established platforms to people one can trust and who have already cultivated their own personal reach and untold dividends.
With his company’s energies channeled towards a positive future, one where we can all hopefully put COVID-19 in our rearview, Perkes says PalmPleasures.com is focusing on its customers’ shopping experience while remaining excited as ever to see where manufacturers might be leading next with the industry’s always-surprising technological innovations.
“VR has a lot of possibilities in coordination with toys,” he says of that area where technology has been taking leaps. “It seems like the options there in particular are endless.”
Even while ushering in the new with his site relaunch, John Perkes still offers up this simple assurance of dedication to the same ethos that has been at the heart of PalmPleasures.com since he started the company six years ago:
“One of the things we have taken from my previous experience is that in the funeral world, you only get one chance to do things right. I think the customers in this industry deserve the same dedication and experience from us.
“Serve the customer first … everything else will fall into place.”
