Sex in the City: an interview with Nicola Relph, founder of Adulttoymegastore

In 15 years, Wellington-based Adulttoymegastore has grown from selling via Trademe to an award-winning ecommerce business that is the largest of its type in Australasia.

This month we sit down with Nicola Relph, founder and CEO of Adulttoymegastore to learn more about developing an international e-retail business.

WCL: Tell us who you are and what you do.

NR: I’m Nicola Relph and I’m the founder of Adulttoymegastore. We launched back in 2009 with the sole purpose of making pleasure products more accessible to people.

We established a business selling general consumable goods back in the infancy of Trademe. We used that platform to run an early e-commerce shop using their platform to facilitate getting products to our customers quickly and easily.

Interestingly, we tried sexual wellness products as a set and the interest in buying that product online was huge. This made us realise there was a massive demand for people to be able to buy their sexual wellness products and have them delivered discretely. This is why Adulttoymegastore was born.

WCL: What attracted you to an e-business model rather than a bricks and mortar retail business?

NR: When we were selling on Trademe we realised we didn’t need bricks and mortar stores to get customers. I think people wanted to buy sexual wellness products but they didn’t want to go into a store and front up to the person behind the counter.

For me e-com was a clear opportunity, you can have a beautiful store, you can give the customer everything they want, and you’re not constrained by space, it’s truly limitless what you can do with e-com.

WCL: You apparently showed entrepreneurial spirit from a young age. Can you tell us a bit about your very early enterprises?

NR: As a kid I loved the idea of getting something, changing it, making it better and figuring out how to make people want this. The thrill of the chase was always fun for me.

WCL: When you set up the business and moved away from the Trademe platform what kind of learning curve did you have?

NR: It’s been a journey. In terms of learning we’ve done everything ourselves. Every piece of software we run in this business is a bespoke piece of software.

If I was doing it now, would I do it differently? Probably. But what it gives us, I think, is all the tools to be able to instigate innovation on our website very quickly.

WCL: How many staff does ATMS employ?

We started off with two employees and now we’re a team of twenty.

WCL: What do you look for in a potential staff member?

For me it’s attitude first. We can teach people skill but you can’t teach people attitude. It's asking do they have the drive and the excitement, are they purposeful in what they do. It’s those characteristics that I look for.

Most people who come and work for an adult brand are reasonably open minded because they are excited about working for a brand like ours.

WCL: ATMS had phenomenal sales increases in the lead up to and during Covid lockdown - I understand sales tripled in the 48 hours before NZ went into lockdown – how did you cope?

NR: It was a crazy period for our business, but we were reasonably well planned.

On day two of the lockdown, I went to the supermarket and there wasn’t a single condom on the shelf. This was a serious problem, and an opportunity.

I approached MBIE very quickly about being an essential service. Our warehouse is Medsafe certified for the provision of condoms, lubricants, provision of post cancer care, and menstrual cups. MBIE said “Absolutely, you can”. Because we could still trade our sales went through the roof. It was unprecedented.

Lockdown stripped people of their ability to socialise. So, we really leant into the joke that flatmates had never looked so good until lockdown.

For us it was about how do we support the environment for people to be sexually safe but sexually satisfied at the same time.

WCL: You ship products from Wellington to customers in around 11 countries. Have you deliberately targeted the international market or has it just found you online?

NR: The major part of our business is New Zealand, followed by Australia.

Australia is a great catchment because they are close and have a market 10x that of New Zealand.

We ship to the US, but it’s almost not worth it with the tariffs and prices going up and down, it’s just a bit messy. Hopefully once that sorts itself out, and there is stability back in the market we would be interested in having another look at that.

WCL: As an international e-commerce business, how seriously do you take cybersecurity and customer privacy?

NR: Very seriously! At senior to board level we have our own CySo [Cybersecurity Officer]. He helps us to look at our systems all the time, to understand where we can make improvements and for us discretion and privacy are the main pieces of our puzzle.

WCL: How do you keep up with new product offerings?

NR: It’s in our name – we’re a megastore. We like to not put any constraints on what people are looking for.

Our warehouse stocks about 40,000 different products. So, I’d say we are doing a pretty good job!

WCL: Education is an important part of the your company ethos – tell us about your podcast and ATMS TV.

NR: Education is one of our core pillars and always has been.

About four years ago we supported Emma, one of our amazing team members, to get a qualification through a university in America to be a qualified sex educator.

She currently heads our three educational verticals

The Heat which is our onsite blog. We have over a thousand articles that have been written on every topic you can imagine.

The Electric Rodeo is our sexuality podcast about sex, pleasure relationships and everything in between. It’s had three seasons and has been a finalist in the New Zealand podcast awards.

ATMS TV our Youtube channel that houses answers to all the questions people want to ask, but don’t know who to go to. Our channel has over two million views now.

WCL: You've been a Wellington Business Gold awards finalist on several occasions and a winner of your nominated category in 2021. You’ve also been nominated for or won various retail awards when you’ve been up against household brand names. To what do you attribute this consistent business success and what does that recognition mean to you and your team?

NR: For us, it’s about getting up every day and doing your very best to get to your goals.

“You need a whole team. You have to wrap yourself with people who are better at things than you are. When you’re a team you can achieve greatness”.

Winning the Wellington Gold Awards back in 2021 was remarkable because we were up against mainstream businesses. This reinforced to our team that we were breaking down barriers and slowly, but surely people were starting to come along on the journey with us.

For an organisation, it reminds us that what we’re doing is important and valued more than we can imagine.

WCL: Do you feel it positively affects how customers view your business – that it engenders trust with customers?

NR: Trust metrics in any business are important. For example, Google reviews for Adulttoymegastore are outstanding. That’s people who put their hand on heart in the public domain and say, “I had a great experience with this business.” This is gold for a business, it validates that what we are doing is working for people.

WCL: You send out a huge number of packages each week and have moved to sustainable packaging – what else are you doing to minimise your environmental impact?

NR: Our first step towards sustainability was replacing the plastic courier bags we used for shipping. Finding a suitable alternative that could endure freight handling took considerable time and testing. After extensive research, we partnered with R3pack, a New Zealand-owned company dedicated to eco-friendly packaging solutions .

At that time, we also used bubble wrap inside our courier packs. To further reduce plastic use, we transitioned to a corrugated, stretchy card material from R3pack. This change introduced a new challenge: our existing stickers, designed for bubble wrap, didn't adhere well to the new card material. We underwent a thorough process to find a compatible solution.

We also use NZPost as our trusted supply partner. Often the things we can do are reliant on our partners. NZ Post is doing an amazing job at working through their sustainability programme.

We have also teamed up with CarbonClick. When customers go through our checkout they can opt to add a $2 contribution to go towards the carbon offset process. All that money goes into the CarbonClick pool to then do sustainable projects.

We know that it takes everybody to do their piece to make the big picture. Obviously we don’t manufacture the product ourselves so we are relying on suppliers to do their piece. It’s a process but it’s something we pay great attention to.

WCL: ATMS recently partnered with another Wellington business, Delivereasy, as another way of distributing products. How is that working out? Is it just local at the moment or across the country?

NR: I love collaborating with other dynamic, entrepreneurial spirited businesses. The Deliveryeasy partnership was one of our ways to increase accessibility to our products.

This idea allowed customers to order toys at any time, and receive them in thirty minutes.

Currently this is just being trialled in Wellington. It’s not breaking records but it’s a nice way of opening people’s mindset to a product line they may not have thought about.

WCL: International market figures indicate there’s a lot of potential for growth over the next 5-10 years. Where do you see yourself in terms of capturing some of this market?

NR: The market is growing due to the normalisation of sexual health and wellness. That’s great news for us as a business in that space as we can capitalise on that interest and add a whole lot of fuel to it.

We’re excited about being a growth industry. New Zealand and Australia will form part of that market for us.

WCL: What keeps you in Wellington?

NR: I’m a born and bred Wellingtonian. I went to school here, my husband is from here, our kids go to school here. We’re very much embedded in Wellington.

We have a large warehouse here. We’ve invested a lot of money. We are employing Wellingtonians. It does matter to us. Right now there’s no plans to change that. Wellington’s where it’s always been.

WCL: Any business advice you’d like to share from experience.

NR: It sounds so cliched but just do it.

For me it’s make the move. Be willing to assess, test and measure. Make sure it’s right and then continue. Or test, be agile and test again.

Learn more about e-commerce with these library resources

• eCommerce in a week : selling online in seven simple steps by Nick Smith, 2019
• Selling online by Paul Waddy, 2025
• Start an online business : in easy steps by Jon Smith, 2019
  
• Ecommerce Fundamentals (Linkedin Learning course)

In this course, instructor Patrick Rauland dives into transforming your idea into a full-fledged online store. Patrick details several ecommerce business models and how to choose the business model that's right for you

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Archives of Sexuality and Gender
The Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. (Library registration required)