XR Going Back to BDSM Roots

Back to XR’s BDSM Roots
By Rebecca Weinberg

XR Brands has come a long way since its 2007 debut, growing from a handful of niche and specialty collections into one of the widest arrays of fully merchandised brands in the industry. We’ve catered to every in-demand, underserved, and profitable category in the business with competitive pricing, strategic marketing integration, and the kind of expert customer service that helps make our customers’ jobs just a little easier. And though this expansive catalog has helped put XR Brands on the map as a manufacturer force, we’re celebrating 15 years of success by putting special focus back on what put XR on the map: BDSM.

XR was originally founded by Ari Suss and Kelly Eberhard, who together created ExtremeRestraints.com, one of the first online adult retailers to focus exclusively on fetish and serving customers eager for the kind of BDSM gear they couldn’t find anywhere else. The now internationally recognized online store provided so much more than straps, cuffs, collars and fetish tools; shoppers had access to comprehensive product descriptions and professional photography that not only enabled educated buying decisions, but also helped inspire the kind of visual fantasies that ultimately translated into sales. But what especially set XR apart – and provides XR Brands with a distinct competitive advantage – is our unique knowledge of what BDSM really is.

Many of our staff live the scene and use the gear we design, develop, and manufacture. We genuinely understand the needs and desires of the community and rather than guess or pick-and-choose which products we should make, XR Brands utilizes user and customer commentary via ExtremeRestraints.com’s impressive reach. Our retail site remains one of our most valuable tools and connects us with millions of opinionated members of the BDSM community, whose detailed feedback helps us design our niche, fetish, and BDSM tools. And ExtremeRestraints.com’s review system allows us to quickly identify opportunities for improvement of existing products while developing new ones that supply growing demand.

Some of our most successful products were made thanks to our loyal and communicative consumers, such as the Milker masturbation machine, which was released last year to international acclaim. This incredible machine features a thin silicone tube encased in an ABS plastic cylinder that, when activated, simultaneously sucks and softly strokes the user and can bring them to orgasm in a way never before felt from the automatic sex toy category. It’s products like these that have made XR Brands the industry’s go-to source for BDSM and fetish gear made for advanced and experienced players.

Our reputation for BDSM expertise has remained deeply rooted even as our brand lineup reached more than 25 with a catalog of more than 2,500 products available. While we branched into softer categories over the years, our signature BDSM-focused brands continued to flourish and help retailers increase revenue with next-level gear. Because once shoppers “outgrow” the beginner basics, they need expert brands they can depend on – and that’s how XR Brands gives our supply chain an important competitive advantage.

So this year, we’re returning to our roots and revamping the company to better reflect our fetish specialty: our top-selling Master Series line of advanced BDSM tools is growing fast, our leather and restraint collections are expanding, and more exciting e-stim and sex machine designs are in the pipeline. With genuine understanding of the community, XR Brands knows what shoppers want and creates it using expert design, smart packaging, and a competitive pricing structure that makes it accessible to the masses.

Brand lost its way, oversaturated with lots of products, feel look everything started to go into so many directions. What we are doing now is going back to our best-selling line, masters, seeing how can we expand from there in terms of the brand. Expanding existing strict lines, back to the roots.

Revamping brand to give more fetish feel, trade show booths, dungeon store within store, dungeon look, focus on items cover whole bdsm arena including more advanced. That’s competitive advantage, cages, suspensions, we pick up where they leave off.

Cohesive packaging and affordable price points made masters consumer and retail friendly. And Accessible to masses and to the supply chain.

Nipple clamps always best sellers but inflatables have grown by adding variations and sizes, 8-9 diff inflatables butt plugs, tails. Urethral sounding increased in demand and keep adding. Chastity grown, does well, new materials, plastic, metal, some with TPE and no locks, e-stim chastity. Chastity/sound combo.

• How was XR initially founded?
XR was founded by myself, Ari Suss and Kelly Eberhard. We both have a passion for fetish and discovered a need in the online fetish retail market. We focused on creating a website that utilized current technologies, provided a tantalizing shopping experience that also educated the consumer on how to use bdsm products in their lives. In 2001 eXtremeRestraints.com was born. We invested in writing comprehensive product descriptions and creating professional photography that lent itself to creating a visual fantasy for the user. We were one of the first in the industry to allow customers to write reviews on their product experiences to help others make a better buying decision.

• What made you/XR the experts in the fetish/BDSM realm?
Our review system allows us to quickly identify improvement opportunities of existing products and to develop new ones that supply a growing demand. We currently have over 25 brands and 2,500 products available.

In 2012 XR created XR University, a free online education show, that showcases our top rated products in action. We are proud of its success. Currently with over 4 million views our community has been able to watch and learn in order to create a new level of sexual satisfaction. XR Brands shares these resources to help create some of the best product videos and photography in the industry.
Over the years our websites, brands and products have received numerous awards from various industry leaders including AVN, XBiz, Store Erotica and Kink.com. Including the prestigious AVN Hall of Fame award for pleasure products and Xbiz Fetish company of the year.

What sets us apart from the competition is that many of our staff live the scene and use the gear. They helped develop extreme Restraints with a no nonsense approach that resonated with the community. Shortly after launch the fetish community quickly embraced extreme Restraints as a dominant leader in its industry. With our affiliate and advertising program we created strong partnerships with Adult Friend Finder, Alt.com, Kink.com and Fetlife.com. With a strong network behind us traffic poured in and so did the consumer feedback. We used that valuable feedback to help us design our own line of products. Most recently we are most proud with The Milker, an autonomous masturbation machine, designed by consumer requests. Our review system allows us to quickly identify improvement opportunities of existing products and to develop new ones that supply a growing demand. We currently have over 25 brands and 2,500 products available.

• How did XR grow from a retail store into the multi-faceted company it is today?
By using our competitive advantage that includes economies of scale, brand recognition, a powerful network and a passionate staff, we used our retail knowledge to move into manufacturing and launched XR Brands.

We’ve had our competitors single us out because of our success in online retail. Yet that’s what helped power the branding, innovation and resources to make XR Brands a truly unique manufacturer that has taken the industry by storm. We asked one of our distributors what XR brands can do to help create more exposure of our brands. They stated, “XR has done such a great job with marketing the brand that you have already done the hard work for us”. No other manufacturer we are aware of in this industry has implemented such a powerful vertical integration.

We have worked hard at attracting and retaining key employees. We realize that a fun and relaxed work environment will foster more innovation and success than traditional models. Therefore XR has added a variety of employee perks that go above and beyond the competitive compensation and benefits, opportunities for growth and a hire from within philosophy. They include education reimbursement, weekly employee massages, work out classes with a fitness professional, free breakfast Fridays, basketball and biking equipment, free product samples, team cookouts, beach neighboring offices, monthly birthday celebrations and holiday parties that include thousands of dollars in giveaways including TV’s and IPads.

• Are there any historical milestones you’d like to share that might make nice anecdotes in this (or future) columns?
We are currently celebrating our 15yr anniversary in business. XR products have been seen on various cable programs including HBO and Showtime. We’ve also crossed the pages ofa few lifestyle magazines including Cosmopolitan. XR has relocated for expansion four times since its inception in 2001 and are currently located in Huntington Beach, CA in a 60,000 square foot facility.

HBO and Showtime are not cable programs, they are Cable and Satellite Networks. In reference to a few, you may want to include more than one.

And the ‘O’ Award for Outstanding Packaging for 2015, XR Brands!

Our proprietary technology manages and processes over 3 million orders and counting.