Challenges in the job market, maternity and the struggle for the right to decide about one's own body: what defines today's woman? Whatever the answer is, one thing is certain – it is necessary to break taboos. Breaking paradigms and deconstructing prejudices, a pelvic physiotherapist and a marketing specialist, both from Porto Alegre (RS), they combined sexual education and e-commerce to sell erotic and intimate self-care products exclusively for women with the online store VagiShop
The history of the business began with Ana Gehring's interest, one of the founders, for female sexuality. Graduated in Pelvic Physiotherapy from PUCRS, specialized in the area and began to attend to women in the office, teaching techniques such as pompoir – a type of pelvic exercise that strengthens the vaginal muscles, providing benefits such as increased sexual pleasure and assistance in the treatment and prevention of urinary incontinence. Upon noticing the recurring doubts of her patients, Ana decided to create an Instagram profile to educate and inform about women's intimate health in a light and colloquial way. Thus, in 2016, the page was born@Vaginasemneura, which today has 870 thousand followers
"I have always been interested in female sexuality", mainly because it is a topic surrounded by taboos. At university, I already knew that this was the path I wanted to follow. With the page, I was able to demystify the topic and bring knowledge to many women who would not have the means to attend a clinic. "Prejudices can only be broken with knowledge", says Ana, that completes "Even today, we have many followers who view our content, but they do not follow the profile out of shame or fear that they will see the name @Vaginasemneura on their profiles
E-commerce platform boosts business
In 2019, the success of the page led Ana to team up with digital marketing specialist Nalu Dorscheid. Nalu, who already had experience with online commerce, saw the monetization potential of Ana's initiatives, that accumulated.. The program revealed that our students were also seeking recommendations for complementary products. So we launched our first product, the VagiFit. We didn't imagine we would have such demand when launching, "we had to organize ourselves for the demand", remind
With the growth of sales, entrepreneurs needed to seek technology to support the increase in website traffic. It was then that they adopted the e-commerce platformTray, belonging to LWSA, that allows the creation of online stores integrated with digital channels, in addition to facilitating marketing and sales actions, thus creating VagiShop, online store dedicated exclusively to intimate health and female pleasure, differentiating itself from the traditional sex shop business.
With the growth of digital commerce, those who venture online need to rely on solutions that provide secure and well-structured websites, including logistics services, payments and marketing, explainThiago Mazetto, director of Tray
The partnership with Tray allowed entrepreneurs to review a sales strategy in another channel in time to achieve a record revenue on Black Friday 2023. We saw that the previous strategy did not perform well, sales were very low in the monthly analysis. We created the store with Tray and, on the eve of Black Friday, and with the online store we broke our revenue record that year, highlights Nalu
Today the product portfolio that includes: intimate hygiene, cosmetics, pompoirism and vibrators. Among the most sought-after items are soaps, intimate moisturizers and lubricants, besides other accessories
Facing taboos
From the beginning, the purpose of VagiShop was to unite education and service provision for women's self-care. However, in a market still permeated by prejudices and its own challenges, Nalu highlights the obstacles to business scalability.
Among the barriers are the platform restrictions, that frequently classify the content as inappropriate. In 2023, the Instagram profile was deactivated on the grounds of violating the platform's guidelines. We had the same problem, in 2024, with YouTube. "It was necessary to resort to legal action to recover our accounts", tells the marketing specialist
The taboo extends to partnership relationships, with the refusal of some influencers to collaborate with the brand, out of fear and shame of exposing themselves to such a sensitive issue. Consumers also seek discretion when purchasing products. We use discreet packaging and, on the card statement, the name of the store is an acronym. Confidentiality is essential, clients feel intimidated,so much so that most of the service calls are to find out how discreet our shipping is."explains Nalu"
Despite the challenges, entrepreneurs continue to pave a path to success. Майбутні плани включають власну лінійку продуктів для інтимного догляду та додаток, by subscription, that will feature various health content specialists, sexual education and women's well-being
