A Sniff And A Heave’O

Edible body paint or sensual body powder, anyone? A lipstick made with pheromones that will transfer ‘electricity’ with a kiss? Even, gasp, some erotic lingerie for men? These are but a sampling of goodies that would soon be available over the internet for Indians interested in buying adult products without having the entire world judge them. There has always been a latent market for adult products in India; but availability has been scarce thanks to social stigma and laws that prevent items of sexual nature from being sold. While the larger cities and metros have had access to imported products, actual buying has been subdued because no one wants to be ‘seen’ buying these.

And voila...the internet, panacea to so many human problems, comes to the rescue. If the experience with the sale of books on adult themes on the net is any indication, it’s boom time. “People regularly buy erotica on the internet. We have sold thousands of copies of 50 Shades of Grey in just three months,” says Indiaplaza founder and CEO K. Vaitheeswaran, an e-commerce veteran. These books have been bestsellers on other Indian e-commerce sites as well. This led other publishers to put up similar books on e-commerce websites, and sure enough, they did brisk business too.

Vaitheeswaran insists other products, like sensual lingerie, are also doing good business on the net and a large part of the demand comes from smaller cities, for such products are unavailable in stores or organised retail in smaller towns. In value terms, the total adult product market is India is estimated at $221 million against a global market size of $21.8 billion. E-commerce exponents predict that the Indian market is expected to more than double to $453 million in the next three years and explode at around $1.6 billion by 2020—products like erotic lubricants, lotions and lingerie are expected to record a growth of 40-45 per cent.

No wonder, many internet entrepreneurs are jumping on the bandwagon. “There are products which people are not comfortable buying in organised retail or physical shops. Even for books, people are embarrassed picking up literature that is sexual in nature from a bookshop. This is where online buying will come in handy,” says Samir Saraiya, an internet veteran who has worked with Microsoft and Yahoo. Later this month, Saraiya is starting an e-commerce site that will deal exclusively with adult products. Saraiya’s starting line-up will feature 600 products—including erotic lingerie and G-strings, soft products like lotions and lubricants, party material, hygiene, sensual products and jewellery, honeymoon gifts and adult and erotic literature. About 70 per cent of them will be imported.

There’s tremendous potential, for sure: in global online searches, for adult merchandise, India accounts for just 5-10 per cent. For products like lotions, lubricants and creams, India’s share is just 5 per cent against 29 per cent in the US, while for erotic lingerie, India accounted for only 6 per cent of the searches while US was again on tops with 47 per cent. However, for adult literature, games and allied products, Indians were a little busier, accounting for 10 per cent of the global searches while the US was at 35 per cent.

Websites are also bending over backwards to clean up tracks to make transactions discreet, like keeping customer identities secret and offering delivery at neutral venues away from homes and offices. While Indian laws prohibit sales of sexually explicit products and literature, there is still ambiguity regarding rules governing other products. The sellers claim that all products conform to rules and are well within permissible limits. But, in a moralistic society where people get jailed for simple comments on Facebook, that’s easier said than done.