“As a business, we do it all. Distribution of toys and R18 DVDs into licensed stores - which is what most people know us for - but we’ve also moved into herbal tablets and do magazine sales too. On the retail side, we do a lot online. Our own-produced films are available for download, as they have been for eight or nine years now. That business has been hit by the Tube sites, which is hard to fight, but we do what we can. We also sell footwear through
SexyShoesBoots.co.uk, as a more mainstream offering. The site’s name says what it is. It also carries some of our clothing ranges. We recently launched an adult retail toy site too, which is something we’ve not done before - Love-Sex-
Toys.co.uk. That was earlier this year so it’s still getting established. Although we’ve been in this game many years, you’ve got to keep exploring new things. The shrinking DVD market made us look at tablet and herbal products. We’ve had a couple of shops over the years but this one brings together everything we’ve learned. It’s in a good location and does what we want it to do. It’s not a full-on licensed shop because the market’s moving away from that.” Mike explained why the firm returned to retail:
“We had a shop in Derby but we had problems with the council there - this was five years ago - and we’d tried to get licensed, but that hadn’t worked out. So we moved back to Burton and the present site. It’s bigger than what we had before, but the primary attraction was the location on this busy road. The problem with Derby is a lot of the properties there are a lot larger and a lot more money. We didn’t need a site that large. It’s unusual to find compact units of this size that can take a mix of retail and warehousing. When this became available it was ideal for us. There are 12 units in this row, and every one of them, bar the taxi rank, has got a retail front as well as the industrial estate side to their business too. It’s an ideal spot. Derby’s properties might be bigger, and perhaps the council is more flexible over licensing now, but there are issues over using industrial space for retail. Here it’s not frowned upon as such.”
DOWN AT HEELZ
Consumables in Heelz included lubes from ID and OK from Cupid, male enhancement tablets Herbal V Extra, Dynamite and All Night, and the female version called Siren, Durex condoms, aromas and adult magazines. Mike explained: “We get them on Sale Or Return and it’s a 50/50 split on everything we sell. There is still a market for magazines, especially the gay, shemale and transvestite ones.”
Which brought us to shoes and boots, which as Mike explained, drew more than ladies into the shop. “It’s a surprisingly large part of our market,” he began. “We get these from Brian at Erosella and he knows that marketplace well. The Chloes, the Slinkies we stock in larger sizes because we know those designs are particularly popular with our cross- dressing customers. Don’t get me wrong, we also see a lot of couples and lone women in, shoe and boot
shopping, but we make sure we’ve some larger sizes out so chaps know we do the bigger ones too. You’ll see we have some 10s and 11s on display and as soon as we see those being the guy’s focus, we make a point of saying we’ve all the designs in larger sizes and if they want to try anything on they should just ask. We’ve lots more out the back. Same with the boots - we tend to stock those in larger sizes as, if anything, boots are more popular with trannies than the high- heeled shoes.”
Fetish and BDSM gear came next and we asked if that market was still growing. Mike replied: “It’s a good one for this area. There are quite a few Dominatrixes and dungeons - a bit of an underground scene - which we didn’t know about before opening the shop. They put us onto the Birmingham Bizarre Bazaar, and we’ve had a couple in from Sudbury, just down the road, who have their own dungeon in the garage. So we do well with masks, ball-gags, restraints and it is something we’ve gotten more of. The fetish
and tranny market can’t be ignored but I’d say most of our business is still straight, average couples who’re looking to spice things up.”
Spicy is one word to describe some of Heelz’s outfits and Mike held some out for us to get a better look at. “We sell a lot of this sort of dance and clubwear to the younger women, but we also see a lot of couples who go swinging, and they’re always looking for something eye-catching. So we sell a lot of short dresses, open-style, halter-neck, slit-to-the-thigh sort of things. We’ve designs for the girl who wants to be daring but not go as far as to put everything on display.”
SIZE MATTERS
Heelz ensures that its clothing is available in a variety of sizes, as Mike explained: “When a bigger woman comes in, they often find this sort of shop only caters for the size 8-12 lady, whereas they’re looking for 14,
Mike McGee: “We make sure we’ve some larger sizes out so chaps know we do the bigger ones too.” 51
Erotic Trade Only June 2012
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