Target Continues To Update Its Sexual Wellness And Period Care Shelves With Emerging Brands

Target is no longer just flirting with updating its sexual wellness and intimate care selections. It’s committed to moving its reimagined relationship with the categories forward. 

A year after it introduced several emerging brands to its sexual health selection, including Bloomi, Cake, B Condoms and Cheeky Bonsai, the big-box retailer has picked up additional brands, notably sex toy specialist Dame, and escalated the reach of many of the brands it launched last year. 

In 2022, Bloomi placed its eight-item Essentials Collection with a double-sided vibrator, versatile massage oil, lube, wash and more in 1,000 Target stores. The brand has since expanded to 1,500 Target stores. Due in large part to its Target launch, the brand’s sales exceeded $3 million in 2022. Bloomi is finishing up an oversubscribed crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder that’s drawn in excess of $500,000. 

Cake landed at 1,000 Target stores last year. It’s now rolling out anal play device Buzzy Butt and lubricant Tush Cush to 403 doors. The brand has increased its Target door count 60%.

To guide shoppers new to Cake’s products or the pleasure category in general, the brand has created a color-coded sex care system. In the system, the colors of Cake’s packaging correlate to anatomy parts. For example, products for penises have orange packaging and anal products have pink packaging. The system is being implemented in Target, CVS and Walmart locations as well as on Cake’s e-commerce website. 

Dame has launched at 240 Target stores and on the chain’s site with its sex toys Dip, Eva and Aer, Arousal Serum and Daily Desire Gummies. Another 40 doors have a smaller assortment. Founder Alexandra Fine says Target has always been a goal for the brand. The partnership took about eight months to come to fruition.

“Target first came back with their ideal curation, and we actually had to convince them to take in Dip, our most affordable product,” says Fine. “They are looking to add more premium products to their assortment. They knew that their customers were interested in this category and that they were likely, as Target customers often are, interested in premium brands. I’m really excited to develop more premium products at accessible price points. A partnership with Target gives us scale.” 

Target has put upstart condom brands in select doors, too. Vegan condom brand P.S. Condoms was started by friends and co-founders Raja Agnani and Robert Seo to bring innovation to the condom market. The market has been relatively unchanged for decades, and its three leading players are each over a century old. They command some 90% of sales. 

P.S. Condoms’ Target partnership, which places it in 150 doors, is its first major retail partnership. Currently, Amazon and the brand’s site drive a majority of its sales. To ready P.S. Condoms for its Target debut, Agnani and Seo redesigned its packaging to support browsing and discovery on retail shelves. They’ll employ geo-targeted advertising to raise awareness of P.S. Condoms’ presence at Target and tout that presence on social media. 

“On Target.com, we’ll be educating shoppers about our condoms and how they are different from others carried by Target with enhanced content on our product pages,” say the co-founders in an email. “Finally, we are excited to announce our availability at Target with our tens of thousands of active P.S. customers via email and SMS as we found that Target is the No. 1 retailer where our customers currently shop.”

Woman-founded condom brand Jems has premiered in 149 Target stores and on the retailer’s site with its 3-pack, 12-pack and 24-pack condom boxes. Similar to P.S. Condoms, Yasemin Emory and Whitney Geller founded Jems in 2021 to disrupt the staid condom market. The women also wanted to bring a genderless inclusionary brand to the strongly male-coded segment. 

Sexual wellness isn’t the only legacy brand-laden category Target has revamped of late. Vaginal health brand Cheeky Bonsai has enlarged its Target footprint from 230 to 800 doors. Four of the brand’s offerings, including its newest product, Balanced Babe Probiotic Gummies, are sold at Target stores. The gummies are exclusive to the retailer for a few months. Cheeky Bonsai’s Bye Bye UTI Urinary Tract Health Support Drink Mix is a bestseller at Target. 

“It’s a really strong mover in the fem care aisle and in the drink mix category overall,” says Cheeky Bonsai founder Elise Orthwein. “We started Cheeky Bonsai because we were tired of the shame around everyday women’s health. From UTIs to vaginal health and gut health, we wanted to create all-natural, clinically-backed products that women could trust and feel good using.” 

Gen Z- and gen Alpha-focused sustainable period care brand Pinkie has entered 500 Target stores with its Organic Cotton Top Sheet Pads. The retail partnership follows the brand securing $1 million in funding and successfully launching on Amazon.

Moms Fiona Simmonds and Sana Clegg founded Pinkie last year. The brand’s raison d’etre is designing products that address the menstruation pain points of today’s pre-teens. The age girls enter puberty has dropped by about three months per decade since the 1970s. While girls are getting their periods earlier than ever, Clegg and Simmonds noticed there was no period pad innovation for girls who use period protection at a younger age. Within its assortment, Pinkie provides pad sizing options for ages 8 and above.

Clegg says, “Fiona and I wanted to create a puberty brand that spoke to young females about what was important to them: sustainability, reliability, pride, empowerment and community.” 

Along with Pinkie, Target has inserted period care company Saalt’s bestselling Saalt Wear Comfort Brief in its selection at 400 doors and on its site. Saalt’s period underwear hasn’t been available in mass-market retail before. Target has carried the brand’s period cups for years. 

Nicole Leinbach, retail expert and founder of the publication Retail Minded, sees the sexual wellness and period care moves as evidence that consumers want more better quality options, especially in categories that haven’t been reinvented for a long time. “As merchants such as CVS and Target evaluate where, why and how customers shop, sexual wellness continues to be among the most prominent categories of consumer spending,” she says. “Additionally, independent and emerging brands within this category catch retailer attention because of their attention to the products that they are creating and their unique understanding of this important health and wellness category.”

Leinbach recommends other retailers look to Target for inspiration. “Welcome brands that aren’t always the most recognized, consider introducing new inventory beyond your current assortment and factor in how your customers react to what you are offering them,” she says. “Ultimately, this will allow you to be more proactive and more profitable as you continue to evaluate the best sexual health and wellness offerings your brand or your store can offer.”