eCommerce: Sexual Wellness Market

Online Sexual Wellness Market: Key Insights

• Top Stores: Adameve.com leads the global online erotic market with US$314 million in sales (2023), followed by eis.de and lovense.com. Lovehoney.co.uk, after dropping in rankings, stabilizes at fifth, while pinkcherry.com impressively jumped nine spots to sixth, and traditional leaders like fleshlight.com have seen a decline from their pre-Covid positions.

• Market Development: The U.S. leads the market with 44% of consumers purchasing such products online, reflecting significant market growth with the total eCommerce revenue increasing steadily from US$12 million in 2017 to a projected US$46 million by 2028.

• Consumer Demographics: Millennials lead in online purchases of sexual wellness devices, accounting for 47% of such sales, followed by Gen Z at 39%, while Gen X and Baby Boomers are less engaged at 29% and 14%, respectively. Gender disparities vary significantly by country, with Germany and Sweden showing smaller gaps between male and female buyers, in contrast to the UK and France where females show greater reluctance.

The online sexual wellness market is a multi-billion-dollar industry and it has been experiencing a significant surge in growth.

It's not just about sex toys anymore; the sector includes a broad range of products related to sexual health, intimate care, and reproductive health products, encapsulating the term “sexual wellness devices”.

Online Erotic Market: Top Stores

According to our data, adameve.com continues to lead the global market in online sales for the erotic category, generating US$314.8 million in 2023. It's closely followed by eis.de, with sales amounting to US$202.4 million. The third position is held by lovense.com, which saw a significant 21% growth last year, reaching net sales of US$179.3 million.

While the likes of Amazon may indeed sell a significant volume of erotic products, our focus here is on those eCommerce platforms that have built their business exclusively around the selling of erotic products. These top specialist stores, with their sales records and business strategies, serve as potent indicators of the industry's current state and potential future directions.

Lelo.com and lovehoney.co.uk also performed well last year, generating US$124.4 million and US$116.2 million respectively. Following them are new entrants and rising online stores such as pinkcherry.com with US$96.1 million, and lovehoney.com with US$81.8 million in sales.

Completing the list are bad-dragon.com, easytoys.nl, and fleshlight.com, each posting sales figures around US$74 million in 2023.

Has the top 10 landscape always looked like this, though? Looking at the last six years' rankings of the world's top 10 online stores specializing in the erotic category, various trends stand out.

Competition Analysis: Stable Market Leaders

As far as specialist online stores go, adameve.com and eis.de have consistently been the top two global online stores in the erotic category for six consecutive years.

While lovense.com and lelo.com have climbed up the ranks consistently in the last couple of years, the same cannot be said for lovehoney.co.uk. Ranking third by 2019, the online store started losing altitude, dropping to first the 4th (in 2020) and then the 6th spot (in 2021). The main domain of the British company went back up to the 4th spot in 2022, before settling at the 5th spot last year.

Pinkcherry.com at the 6th spot made an impressive jump to its current ranking in 2022, climbing up 9 spots in one year. Lovehoney.com, which also had a consistent rise through ranks in the last years, is followed by bad-dragon.com. The online store, known for its innovative and artsy products, got a taste of the 5th spot in 2021, but then retreated back to number 8 the year after and stayed there.

9th online store on our list, easytoys.nl, displays a solid case of perseverance. The Dutch domain was at #17 in 2019, but surely made its way up to the top 10. One of the most known stores in the top 10, fleshlight.com, on the other hand, is now far from its pre-Covid success.

Online Sexual Wellness Sales: United States Leads the Booming Market

The eCommerce revenue in the global erotic and adult market has shown notable changes in the last decade or so.

In 2017, revenue was close to US$12 million. In 2019, revenue increased to US$16 million. In 2020, there was a significant jump to almost US$20 million, a 24% increase from 2019, spurred by increased online activity during the pandemic.

By 2023, revenue reached US$30.2 million. Looking ahead, the forecast for 2024 predicts a further increase to US$33.7 million. The trend continues upward, with projected revenue reaching US$46.7 million by 2028, suggesting sustained growth in the market.

Online Share of the Market is Set to Increase

From the comfort of their homes, customers can access an unprecedented array of sexual wellness devices with a level of privacy and anonymity that brick-and-mortar stores may not offer. In addition, the online sphere affords consumers the luxury of time and an informational richness to make well-informed choices. 

As per our data on the online share of the global erotic and adult market from 2017 through 2028, there was a significant increase in online sales from 2019 to 2020, jumping from 8.2% to 10.3%, showing a 26% increase. However, there was a decline from 2021 to 2022, dropping from 10.6% to 9.4%, representing an 11% decrease, due to a temporary market saturation or a shift in consumer behavior post-pandemic.

Looking ahead, forecasts indicate a steady increase in the online market share, climbing annually from 10.6% in 2023 to 14.7% by 2028, suggesting growing consumer comfort and increasing penetration of online sales in the erotic and adult market.

But how do different countries fare when it comes to buying sexual wellness devices online?

United States: Largest Share of Consumers Buying
Sex Toys Online

According to the latest data from Klarna Insights on the percentages of consumers purchasing sexual wellness devices online in different countries, the U.S. leads with 44% of consumers making such purchases, marking it as the top country for sales of sex toys. The United Kingdom follows closely with 39%.

Finland and Germany both show significant engagement, with 37% and 35% respectively. Australia also has 35% of its online shoppers buying these products. Sweden and the Czech Republic have 33% and 32% respectively, matching the Netherlands at 32%, which is the global average. Spain and New Zealand round out the list, each with 31% of their consumers purchasing sexual wellness devices online.

Majority of Sexual Wellness Devices Are Bought From
Online Specialists

For better context, it's beneficial to zoom out a bit and look at the offline channels as well. A report by PwC provides a glimpse into the channels used by consumers to purchase sexual wellness devices in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

In a survey where respondents could pick multiple channels, the most commonly preferred method of purchase is through specialist sex stores selling multiple brands, both online (55%) and in-person (27%). Online marketplaces such as Amazon are the second most popular channel, with 45% of consumers making their purchases through these platforms. In addition to this, a significant number of consumers (39%) prefer to buy directly from brand websites. 

More traditional retail outlets such as department stores and pharmacies are also utilized, albeit less frequently, for both online (14% and 11%, respectively) and in-person (12% each) purchases. Supermarkets too feature on this list, catering to 11% of consumers for their in-person shopping needs.

Lastly, 9% of consumers prefer to shop online from generalist retailers' websites. While this option was only presented to U.S. respondents in the survey, it reveals that retailers like Target are carving out their own niche in this market, despite being a less conventional choice for such purchases.

Who Buys Sex Toys Online: Demographics of the Customer Base

Having covered the top players and the market evolution of the industry, we will now focus on the demographics of consumers who purchase sexual wellness devices online.

Data from Klarna and Nepa shows that millennials, at 47%, are the generation with the highest share of online purchases of erotic materials and toys.

While Gen Z follows with a significant 39%, only nearly a third (29%) of Gen Xers purchase these products online. As might be expected, the Baby Boomer share is rather low at 14%.

Germany: (Almost) Gender Equality in Online
Sex Toy Shopping

The types of sex toys differ when it comes to different genders, but so does the share of consumers who purchase these devices online.

As the largest online market for sexual wellness products, the U.S. has the highest share of both male (47%) and female (41%) users, while the difference in share (based on percentage points) between the genders is not as great as in the other countries in the chart below. In the UK, for example, the percentage point difference between the shares of male (44%) and female (34%) users is 10, suggesting a bigger gap between genders, as well as reluctance among female users to purchase sexual wellness products online.

Female consumers in France are even more reluctant, with just over a quarter (27%) making such purchases online. The participation of their male counterparts isn't much higher at 34%. Germany and Sweden, on the other hand, stand out as countries where the gap between genders is somewhat smaller in this regard. In Germany, the difference is only 4 percentage points, while in Sweden it's 5.

Sources: Klarna Insights, PwC, ECDB, Statista