Hard to believe, but even after many years of raising safety and quality issues, we remain the only sex toy retailer to eliminate cheap electronics, rubber “jellies” and (phthalate-leaching) soft vinyl products from our inventory. You’ll also not find any deceptive “lotions and potions” on our shelves nor trashy packaging (where more money is invested in what is on the box than what goes in the box). We only sell products that meet our strict guidelines for appropriate design, safe materials, and suitability for the purpose.
Quality of Manufacturing Source
We are proud to promote brands like Lelo (Sweden), whose Vendor Code of Conduct supports “fair labour practices, employee health and safety requirements, and environmental accountability”, and Fun Factory (Germany), whose commitment to designing and manufacturing everything in Germany ensures high quality of life for both their toys and the people making them!
Quality of Materials
Our industry is largely unregulated, perhaps due to the “taboo nature” of the subject matter. Whatever the underlying reasons, the lack of a government health watchdog has meant that we’ve had to be self-regulating. In 1998, Health Canada removed all soft vinyl children’s and pet chew toys from the marketplace. The EEC followed suit in 2001. In 2007 Fisher Price, a major children’s toy manufacturer, was forced to recall numerous models of plastic toys. In each incident, the action followed revelations that these products contained chemicals such as lead and cadmium, which are severely dangerous when absorbed.
A German study of jelly rubber sex toys found extremely high concentrations of solvents and phthalate off gassing. A recent U.S.A. study concluded that habitual use equates to chronic exposure. Clearly, if you can absorb these chemicals through the mouth, then you most certainly can through the vagina or rectum. Accordingly, Womyns’Ware Inc. will only sell silicone, hypoallergenic elastomer and food grade vinyl toys. As for cheap electronics, well, they just aren’t worth the price of their packaging. Quality electronics, whether in stereos or vibrators, are worth the price for their design, quality of materials, function and reliable longer-term, more efficient operation. Lasting quality and healthy materials are naturally green!
Quality of Design
Is the product design suitable for the purpose for which it is advertised? A toy has to be suitable for the promoted purpose before we move it into the next evaluation stage.
Some conceptual examples:. If a Strap-on is supposed to be snug on the hips and fit a full range of women then the straps should be made of a comfortable, long lasting material with a sensible sizing. Another example would be where the material that the product is made of is unsafe (or there is a real possibility of health risk) for the purpose. Our goal is to avoid the customer experience so often equated with low-end sex shops: A customer who uses the product once, finds it wanting, and concludes that all sex toys are shoddy.
Quality of Warranty.
We offer a 60-day warranty against defect in manufacture (and support extended maker-backed warranties) on all the products that we sell,. We also act as the warranty centre for the brands we carry, offering our customers personalized warranty support on all of our products. It’s important to us that our manufacturers will back up their products with robust warranties, and in the rare instance that a customer has need of our warranty support, we’ll go to bat on your behalf.
Keepin’It Loyal
We also have a policy against cannibalization of designs. This means that we will remain loyal to the original creator of a design and will not buy from a copycat maker at a lower price. People deserve our loyalty when they’ve undertaken the research and development costs to bring forward an innovative sexual product. If we allow copycats to dominate the market, ultimately we lose the innovative designers that brought thoughtful products to the fore.
Price Integrity
We won’t price match. No-frills, big-box deep discount operations, and “Loss Leader” pricing on brand-name products are business models at odds with fair trade and sustainable manufacturing. Consider these factors:
– In the no-frills shops, a drop-ship situation of no inventory, very few staff, and no showroom is a norm with which we certainly can’t compete. Our “frilly” business model exists to provide consumer support, extended warranties, rapid order fulfillment, on-hand inventory, and follow-up customer service.
We’ve built a business that operates the way we, as consumers, would want it to operate. We’ve made decisions based on the belief that a substantial share of consumers value high quality and customer service over low price.
Quality of Brand
This final buying threshold requires a product fit with our mission of celebration and empowerment of women’s sexuality. If the product’s message is to demoralize women, we won’t carry it. We also won’t carry products that suggest sexual inadequacy such as penis enlargers or desensitizers or aphrodisiacs. We’d like to encourage people to deal with their intimate relationships through communication and shared exploration not attempt to mask what they think is wrong.
That’s our Particularly Precise Purchasing Policy in a nutshell!
