Amazon Gets In The Sex Toy Business
Search Engine Journal is reporting that Amazon.com has reached a deal with Adam and Eve to make the company's sex toys and other adult and "novelty" items available to Amazon's customers. The items can be seen by searching for "adult toys". 1200 different adult items are now available on the site that started with just books, before becoming an all-purpose internet shopping center. The Boston Herald calls it "earth-shaking":

Who knew? Amazon.com, purveyor of fine literature and baby rattles, is also in the vibrator business.

When the news of Amazon's adult-toys line emerged, all I could think of is how weird the recommendations and "better together" features must be:

Customers who bought the Beginner's Bondage Fantasy Kit (nonreturnable, fyi), also bought: Edible Warming Oils; "The Halliburton Agenda: The Politics of Oil and Money" (John Wiley & Sons); and Lakeside Pickled Turkey Gizzards.

Meanwhile, be careful about shopping at work. The Amazon.com home page on your computer clearly isn't the "boss-safe" site it once was. Especially when it recommends "Sex for Dummies."

The press release quotes Amazon Chief Technology Officer Sean Trotter, who is excited about vibrators (there's your inexplicable search engine result!):

We are excited to offer Adam & Eve products on Amazon.com. We are able to reach a new audience for our products with this new relationship with Amazon. For years Adam & Eve has been the best-known company in the adult toys business and now we are reaching new markets with alliances such as Amazon.com.

Should Amazon be getting into the sex toy business? While it is important that Amazon be competitive in as many areas, the sex industry tends to invite the attention of government regulators and religious groups. Why does Amazon want to take that chance, on an arrangement that won't net them a lot of money anyway? Not necessarily the wrong move, but I'm calling it an unnecessary one.

- posted by Nathan Weinberg @ 11/03/2004 08:34:00 PM