Storm and gloom, corpses and howls.

As our friend InfernalMonkey blogged about: it seems like Otona Sekai went belly-up, without warn nor explanation, leaving customers hanging for orders who’ll possibly never be honored.

Update: after a couple months, Otona Sekai seems unfrozen. Let’s wish them a streamlined business!

Over the years, Onahole Review saw several shops opening up, and then closing down sooner or later. To name a few: NipponSexToys, MyOnahole, and the international shop of NLS which was especially painful event, since without them Onahole Review pretty much never would have been.

There are more, who at some point knocked at our door to benefit from links to their shop pages, but then sank into limbo as much I can’t even remember their name. It happened, and will happen again. Onahole Review, little blog as it is and remains, still has to filter out bad actors and only link to reliable shops who treat customers well, honor orders, seamlessly process payments, but also properly explain and compensate if/when they fuck up.

If not that, why would we even share our feelings and opinions about sextoys we used ? Sextoys -and onaholes in particular- are special products. Oh no, you won’t ever see us linking to a shady eBay seller or a Chinese counterfeiter haunting Amazon marketplace. Accountability must be.

So yeah, it’s always a bit painful when an onahole shop, even small, doesn’t deliver anymore.

And very painful when it’s a big contributor like NLS who steps down to domestic-only.

Reasons of failures

I hate Paypal.

You know why ? Because they are so big. Because, over and over again, I’ve seen onahole shops opening up, handling the payments through Paypal, only to find themselves slammed out of the business when Paypal comes at them reminding them they forbid payments of obscene goods, among other things. Worse yet: in Japan, businesses have to apply to a specific “adult goods” license, without which they don’t even get access to wholesale.

Something else, for any company no matter it’s trade: roughly 50% of businesses fail after 3 years. Lack of customers, bad pricing, bad marketing plans, disputes with employees, distrust from the bank, miscalculation of taxes.. How many onahole shops had to close as the founder or any other key person left or burnt out.

I guess I grew tired, seeing that even in 2018 it’s still not possible to find something as basic as a “wand” vibrator available in every mall around, nor see onahole ads on late night TV, and instead customers have to face a minefield to import the stuff. Until then, the sextoy industry isn’t ripe for the booming success it deserves, with all the benefits on public health and personal happiness.