Sephora UK has partnered with British e-tailer SheSpot on a sexual wellness curation for its online marketplace.
The sexual wellness offering is launching today with over 50 products, including sex toys, lubricants and libido enhancers, from 15 brands such as Oh Collective, Maude and Into The Wylde. While it’s Sephora-branded, orders for it will be fulfilled by SheSpot. At the outset, they’re only delivered within the United Kingdom, but international delivery is a goal for the future. The partnership represents the latest move by Sephora to heighten its presence in the sexual wellness category. In the United States, the beauty specialty retailer has moved into the sexual wellness arena with brands such as Maude and Smile Makers.
SheSpot looked for compelling founder stories, distinct points of view and a commitment to high-quality safe products to build Sephora UK’s sexual wellness marketplace assortment. “They were quite keen to give us free rein,” says Holly Jackson, co-founder of SheSpot. Co-founder Kalila Bolton adds, “Something we really take pride in is making sure the brands’ values we work with are aligned to our own. I think that’s something, from speaking to Sephora, that they’re keen to do as well, making sure all the brands listed share the same mission. That’s something we’ve been able to really put through in the product descriptions.”
Sephora UK initially approached SheSpot via email about the e-tailer helping to assemble the sexual wellness collection for its marketplace. “They’d seen our ethos, our mission, the caliber of the brands and products that we stock,” says Jackson. “I think it’s a relatively nascent category for them, but they’re looking to grow it.”
Before Sephora reentered the U.K. via e-commerce in 2022 and brick-and-mortar this year, the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned chain acquired British e-commerce player Feelunique in 2021. Feelunique had an extensive collection of sexual heath and wellness merchandise, ranging from Durex’s $5 Pleasure Gel to Lelo’s $229 Soraya Wave.
Sephora UK is maintaining wholesale relationships with brands such as Lelo and Smile Makers that it’s been carrying, but SheSpot is deepening those relationships in certain cases—it’s amplifying the retailer’s Smile Makers’ portfolio, for instance—as well as bringing in emerging brands new to the Sephora UK customer. The brands Oh Collective and Je Joue are new to Sephora UK.
Speaking of Je Joue, Bolton lauded the British brand’s innovative products. “They have this rumbling technology [that’s at] a deeper frequency than most vibrators, the idea being that it can penetrate further through the body rather than being a surface level tickle or tingle, which some people don’t really like,” she says. “You really notice the difference.”
SheSpot doesn’t sell CBD products on its website, but branched into them for Sephora UK’s sexual wellness curation. When SheSpot tried CBD products in the past, sales of them were blocked by its payment gateway. At Sephora UK, however, Jackson and Bolton were told that CBD items are popular. Ho Karan’s Libertine Oil is among the CBD products in the sexual wellness collection.
The pair didn’t disclose details of the financial arrangement between SheSpot and Sephora. Jackson calls the arrangement “worthwhile” for both sides. The brands pay a monthly fee to be part of the platform and a percentage commission is charged on orders.
Bolton and Jackson met a decade ago while studying at Oxford University, and they immediately became best friends. Jackson says they bonded over a “passion for and an interest in women’s health, women’s rights and the pleasure space.”
Bolton and Jackson stayed in touch after they graduated and began climbing the corporate ladder. They shared their frustrations about the slowness of sexual wellness destigmatization in the U.K. and a lack of access to high-quality women’s sexual pleasure products. During the pandemic, they ideated SheSpot, and it made its debut in the summer of 2021 as a subscription box. SheSpot’s online store premiered in January of this year.
“This space was really ripe for change, and as we’ve now seen with Sephora, there’s a real movement towards integrating sexual wellness into the wider lifestyle category. They’re really jumping on that and normalizing it for everyone,” says Bolton. “We’ve really seen that in our customer base, in their journey with this. They’re so much more open than they used to be, so it’s been lovely to chart that progress.”
SheSpot is in the middle of its first-ever capital raise. It aims to secure 275,000 pounds or about $340,000 in pre-seed funding to slightly exceed the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) limit. SEIS is a British government tax-break initiative designed to encourage private investors to back emerging businesses. SheSpot has set its pre-seed funding target above the limit to allow for the participation of international investors in the round.
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