Lovehoney co-founder Richard Longhurst shares his unique experience of coping with the various challenges of international expansion.

Don’t listen to me, I’m an idiot.

When I popped up in these pages in 2011 to write about Lovehoney’s experience of being in the Channel 4 documentary More Sex Please, We’re British, I closed by saying that while the 15 minutes of TV fame were nice, “the real work – customer service, new product development, web, mobile, international – is only just beginning”.

And you know what? Five years later, I could write exactly the same words. What an idiot.

Growth spurt

So what have we been doing for the past half decade? It’s not like we’ve been standing still. Back in 2011 we only had one Lovehoney website: a quaint .co.uk.

Now we have five other local domain sites, for the US, Australia, France and Germany, plus a pan-European .eu

Richard Longhurst

Now we have five other local domain sites, for the US, Australia, France and Germany, plus a pan-European .eu that is written in English but priced in euros.

This international expansion, boosted by overseas screenings of the follow-up documentary Frisky Business (or Chaud Business if you’re watching it on Teva in France), has been an important aspect of our growth.

Thanks to the free publicity from the series and our track record of ecommerce brilliance, Lovehoney was listed ninth of 200 privately held companies in The Sunday Times International Track 200 league table, with two-year average overseas sales growth of 146%.

Hard going

But this international spurt has been painful. While I might know instinctively when something is right on an English-language Lovehoney, I’m none the wiser when confronted with the home page of Lovehoney.fr or .de (“Aus purer Lust am Leben”, whatever that means). It’s all Greek to me.

Marketing is harder – what exactly is it that turns Germans on? Are the French really that good in bed? And on and on…

Richard Longhurst

When you do international, recruitment is harder – each site needs native-language speakers in customer care and merchandising. Delivery is harder. Marketing is harder – what exactly is it that turns Germans on? Are the French really that good in bed? And on and on…

Proud though we are of our international growth, it still feels like the work is only just beginning. This is probably the only thing I share in common with Jeff Bezos: the feeling that it’s still day one.

We’ve noticed there’s a country called China where they’re consuming as well as manufacturing sex toys, and which has some mildly popular ecommerce platforms.

There’s a place called India which is a massive opportunity despite coming across as an enigma wrapped in a mystery wearing a vest and riding an elephant.

Second coming

Fans of Frisky Business will be delighted to hear that the show (which has confusingly been renamed The Joy Of Sex Toys for the UK) returns on Valentine’s Day with four all-new episodes on Lifetime.

You’ll see our heroes grapple with the challenges of customer service, new product development, web, mobile and international.

It’ll feel like a repeat, but I assure you it’s not. Same same but different, as they say in Thailand.

  • Richard Longhurst is co-owner of Lovehoney