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Cyrex Ltd (ElectraStim)

By on February 17, 2016
Lula review- Electrastim

Our company founder, Andy Smith, had an extensive background in electro-stimulation prior to founding Cyrex LTD and the ElectraStim brand of sex toys. He’d previously worked on electro units for Kegel exercising and began to look into the sexual applications of e-stim, tweaking stimulator designs to create stimulators designed especially for pleasure. It wasn’t too long until he was developing his own electro sex toys – starting with the highly-polished aluminum electrodes and penis rings. Our first stimulator and electro toys were launched in 2001 and had just 6 intensity levels and 3 wave speeds.

Tell us about your premises
We very recently moved to a new business hub in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire – a small town located about 45 minutes north of London. It’s a large 2-floor building comprised of 2 offices, a workshop where we make stimulators and electrodes, and our warehouse.

What can you tell us about your Sales channels?
There isn’t a retail avenue that we don’t cover! We have distributors around the world, including Shots, Eropartner, Dusedo and Net 1-on-1 in Europe, Eldorado, Nalpac, Mr S and Pink Cherry in the USA and Canada and of course Calvista Australia who supply online stores, retail stores and drop shippers. We also sell a lot of products in Europe directly to companies as wholesale stock but the rest of the world tend to prefer to buy through distributors as it takes out the hassle of importing/duties etc.

Our products can be found on sale all around the world. They come with multi-language instructions in French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Italian as standard, but one of our distributors also includes Polish, Turkish and Russian information for their customers.

What are your thoughts on direct sales and Amazon?
Because we see ourselves as a primarily B2B business, we don’t sell using third-party B2C platforms. We tried Amazon last year but due to the boom in sex toy drop shipper services, controlling prices on the platform has become too difficult. To succeed on the likes of Amazon, you need to undercut stockists with your pricing and that’s not how we do business.

We do sell directly via our website, which has a historic fan base who have always shopped with us. We ensure we look after them with a monthly newsletter but beyond that, the ElectraStim website mainly serves as an educational information hub that’s useful to anyone wishing to learn about e-stim – customers and retailers alike.

In terms of growth, where do you see yourselves now?
Moving to new premises was important to us as we were physically unable to grow the company further owing to a lack of space. Now that we have our spacious new HQ, we’ve a lot more room for working on products in-house, as well as the ability to manage bulk stock for more efficient dispatch.

Electro sex has become increasingly popular over the past 5 years or so, and thanks to evolution in sex tech we have plenty of avenues for product development. Our Silicone Noir sex toys have been a real game changer and have given us a much broader scope for the types of toys we create and the kind of feelings they create.

Sales are steadily climbing year on year and we still have plenty of new ideas we’re exploring, as well as a few already in progress. You can expect to hear plenty from us in the coming year.

How do you promote and create awareness?
We have a dedicated sales & training man, Dave Parker. He travels the world attending trade shows and visiting the staff who sell our products, making sure our stockists and distributors understand how our products work, and better still – allow them to feel electro-stimulation for themselves. Hands-on training is a big thing for us and in our experience it really does wonders for sales.

We do a lot of online marketing too, with a blog, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, FetLife and Facebook accounts. You’ll also see us featuring on many prominent sex blogs as we have a big sex toy reviewer fan base who are always keen to test and write about our latest releases.

ElectraStim

What percentage of your product do you think is sold online vs brick and mortar stores?
As we supply to mainly distributors on an international level, I do not have global figures to compare but due to the fact that we supply direct to most UK ElectraStim sellers I can reveal these statistics. Interestingly over the past 3 years brick and mortar sales in the UK have been consistently around 12% higher than online sales channels. This will no doubt be largely due to the wide availability of ElectraStim in UK high street stores which are more easily serviceable to us. I would expect that on a global basis online sales would currently outweigh brick and mortar but in time, we aim to make ElectraStim more accessible to traditional walk-in shoppers as all the blurb in the world is no substitute for a real life ElectraStim demonstration.

What can you tell us about working with retailers?
Because our products are more complicated than most sex toys, we invest a lot of time in educating retailers. Everyone knows how a vibrator works, but it’s slightly less obvious how e-stim can create a hands-free orgasm. We offer training to all of our stockists either in person or via Skype, and highly recommend that all retailers feel the sensation for themselves to truly understand how the tingles and muscle contractions feel.

We fully support our in-store stockists with a variety of POS items including a video screen, branded header, information signs, catalogues and demo kits that can be used with customers to allow them to feel the ElectraStim effect in-store. Our retailer feedback indicates that an ElectraStim POS brings in extra foot traffic, with people entering the store specifically for a demo. We also promote our physical stockists on site, so it’s easy for those browsing our site to find their nearest demo station. If anyone reading this article wishes to be added to our stockiest map then drop us an email with your physical store details.

What can you tell us about working with distributors?
The main thing is multi-language translations. Historically we only wrote descriptions in English and we introduced multi-language instructions in 2013. The more distributors we work with, the more languages we add to our translations list.

Working with distributors is on-the-whole an easy experience, and we offer the same support to them as we do with our retail clients, – stockist training included.

What are some of your best selling items?
Our stimulator multipacks and Gift Packs receive the most interest and make the most sales. They include a stimulator and one or more electrodes plus gel/lube, so they’re a great first purchase. We originally created our multipacks with cock rings and a probe but found there was a demand for specific areas of stimulation – namely cock stim, vaginal stim and anal stim. To offer the best value for all kinds of play, the Gift Packs were born.

When it comes to individual electrodes, the Silicone Noir range is really shining, especially our Sirius prostate massager. We’ve just launched three new products – The ElectraStim Rocker Butt Plugs which are completely unique. They feature embedded contacts that allow the wearer to sit and grind against the curved rocking base. We’re expecting them to be great sellers. Traditional e-stim toys are made from metal but these can be a tad intimidating to first time “stimmers”. Our Silicone Noir range of toys are made from special conductive silicone and are softer and warmer to the touch.

Are there any country specific trends globally or are some countries more receptive to certain product categories over others?
In general we sell a similar percentage of product types worldwide. If there is an exception then it would be the Russian market who have a tendency towards the more hard-core end of the market. This is probably due to the fact that the hard-core end of the market are more aware of what they want and go to lengths to acquire I,t as general availability is limited, due to economic and logistical limitations.

What brands/product categories are you now manufacturing and how did you select these?
We did a lot of market research over the past year to determine who our customers were and what they wanted, and we’ve taken our design cues from the results. We also have product testers who give us their opinions during the sample stages on manufacturing to make sure our designs are hitting the mark, literally. ElectraStim is our only product brand which enables us to give it 100% of our attention.

What can you tell us about estim products? What misconceptions are there?
The biggest myth is that it’s somehow painful or unpleasant. It isn’t like that at all, many people find that our ElectraStim Flick stimulators are incapable of creating a sensation that feels anything like painful, they’re designed to feel good. The feeling starts with tingles and builds to feel like tingles and involuntary muscle contraction – which feels very similar to the contractions of orgasm when you’re directing the stimulation to an erogenous zone with a sex toy.
You can get more sadistic sensations from e-stim, but this isn’t how most people use it. For those in want of a more intense feel, we recommend the SensaVox which has much more power than our rechargeable Flick models.

It should be mentioned that the sensations created by different brands of electro stimulators are not all the same. Cheaper units will feel harsh and have course intensity control. As with most things – you get what you pay for.

A Synergy Magazine interview with Andy Smith, Founder, Cyrex Ltd.

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