The Oh Collective Opens Amsterdam Store As Other Sexual Wellness Retailers Retreat

While several modern sexual wellness retail experiments have struggled, sexual wellness brand The Oh Collective has determined that the experiment is still worth conducting.

It’s bringing together fellow sexual wellness brands in a new cozy 480-square-foot Amsterdam store on a brick-lined bicycle- and walker-friendly bustling retail thoroughfare two minutes from the landmark plaza Dam Square in the lively central neighborhood Nieuwmarkt. Called The Oh Collective Playground, the store officially opens March 7 with an assortment running the sexual wellness gamut, including vibrators, lubricants, aphrodisiac ingestibles, period care, art books and more. Along with The Oh Collective’s products, it’s stocking products from brands such as Lioness, Crave and Ross J Barr.

Headquartered in Amsterdam and Shanghai, The Oh Collective, which was founded four years ago by longtime friends Eden Chiang, Simona Xu, Winxi Kan and Diana Lin, hasn’t gone into the store blindly. In late 2023, the brand dabbled in the retail waters with a pop-up one block away from Amsterdam’s Red Light District, where sex work is legal and most sex shops in the city are located. The pop-up demonstrated to the brand that there would be consumer receptivity to a retail concept. To further its retail education, co-founder Simona Xu worked in two Amsterdam sex shops for months.

The Oh Collective’s partnership with most brands in The Oh Collective Playground involves a traditional wholesale relationship, although some brands are sold on consignment or through distributors. Similar to many of the brands sold at The Oh Collective Playground, Chiang points out that The Oh Collective is a small brand. It raised a modicum of angel funding in 2023 for an undisclosed amount and is on course to become profitable by the middle of this year. 

“Ideally, we can work with the brands directly. That’s more margin for them and more margin for us as well,” says Chiang. “Opening the store is really important for us, just to be as sustainable as possible and still own the company, the four of us.” 

The Oh Collective Playground comes as Amsterdam is rethinking its reputation for sex work and sex shops. Mayor Femke Halsema, who won reelection in 2024, has made efforts to reduce the number of tourists flocking to the city expressly for sex. As part of those efforts, approvals for sex shops, particularly in the Red Light District, are getting greater scrutiny, and Amsterdam is considering a controversial proposal to move sex workers to a building dubbed the “Erotic Center” on its outskirts. 

Amid the changes, The Oh Collective was worried it wouldn’t receive city approval for The Oh Collective Playground. In the end, Halsema sanctioned its approach, and the city provided it with a permit to operate. Chiang says, “We pitched her on the ethos of The Oh Collective, which is not just a sex shop. We are an overall intimate wellness shop that takes care of intimacy and pleasure.” She estimates it cost The Oh Collective about 5,000 euros or roughly $5,200 to build out the shop. The brand handled a majority of the buildout itself. 

In North America, with the rise of sexual wellness as a modern consumer packaged goods category, retail concepts opened showcasing it over the last few years and retailers jumped on carrying products from disruptive sexual wellness brands. Today, much of that has been undone. Sexual wellness stores Pepper in Las Vegas, Contact Sports in New York City and The Lake in Toronto shuttered within two years. Retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue, which launched over 100 premium sexual wellness products online in 2022, have exited the category or pared back their selection in it. 

The Oh Collective Playground isn’t The Oh Collective’s only project. It’s co-curating an exhibition called “Toy Stories: Designing Intimacy” with art space The Kunsthal in Rotterdam that runs through May 11. The exhibition features 21st century developments in sex toy design promoting inclusivity and sexual health.

Last year, another sexual wellness brand, Maude, sponsored an exhibit at The Louvre entitled “Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media” and had its sex toys in the Paris museum’s shop. The tie-ins with art establishments are a way for sexual wellness brands to raise awareness outside of digital environments that often suppress content related to them and emphasize their craftsmanship and cultural relevance.