About Us Part 2
Behind the logo...
We were different to all the other adult shops in South Africa, and we needed to show we were.
Our past logo has been called many things: unsexy, childish, basic. Many people have asked why it’s not something sexy or suggestive. Some people have even written in with suggestions and logos of naked female silhouettes. But, we didn't want our logo to imply sex at all. We felt our flower-logo encapsulated this ethos.
2004
Shew, these are old-school!
That's when the first logos came in. We were exploring the idea of "Feminine, natural, elegant" and that's were what we wanted to be, compared to the smutty adult shop industry.
2005
Ah, getting better
In 2005, we decided to finally look like the modern, sophisticated company we were... (Haha! Looking back now it seems crazy. At the time, it was a new world for us.)
2006
And even better!
Then in 2006, we needed to clean up and align our brand! The flower symbolised "elegance, simple nature and playful innocence". Whether our customers got that message or not, it was in everything we did.
Simple Beginnings
Things we didn't expect
The beginning bit
We started Matilda's as an after-work project. It was a labour of love from the very beginning. It was tough stuff, back in the day - packing orders before work, after work and all too often, working through the night. Importing stock, basic accounting, dealing with customers. It was indeed a labour of love.
Taking over 6000 photos
We took photos of every. single. product. Back then, manufacturers didn't have product photos. They only had images of the packaging, which was essentially useless. We wanted our customers to choose products in a better way, and so we did it the long way, and took photos of every product. We weren’t photographers, so our first photos needed to be Photoshopped to hell and back before they were acceptable.
Throwing away products
Sometimes we’d open a product for a photoshoot, but the toxic odour of plastic would overtake us. Awful. Back then, quality was simply terrible. Many of the items that we ordered would need to be destroyed (responsibly) and discarded because we simply couldn’t sell them.
Only some brands (like Fun Factory) used quality material, so we started favouring them. The all-too-common, cheaper products were often made from plastic or “jelly” compounds and smelled like toxic, melting plastic.
So much advertising!
We were the first adult brand to take full-page adverts in magazines like Cosmo, Men’s Health and Women’s Health. Our first adverts went into magazines in 2010. Here are some of them!
What’s it like running a sex shop?
The Good
We get to change lives. Just the other day we submitted a piece to a publication showcasing the virtues of cock rings. A gentleman read the story, bought a cock ring and called us a few days later to say we had saved his marriage. Apparently he has been battling with erectile dysfunction for years, which impacted terribly on his sex life. The cock ring helped him to maintain an erection and have sex with his wife once again.
Lovely, hey?
The Bad
Sometimes, on rare occasions, we get people calling in to ask us about sex. The un-cool kinda people who ask “What’s your favourite toy” or “Can you send me a picture of you using it?" etc. We don't entertain nonsense like that.
The Ugly
Creating useful descriptions for the millionth cock-ring, or vibrating bullet, etc. That gets tough!
