Sainsbury’s Are Now Selling Sex Toys From Just £8

Part of Sainsbury’s Living Well range, the three vibrators – the  Aura Silver Vibrator and Massager (priced at £15), the Rose Blush Bullet (£12) and the Rose Gold Bullet (just £8) – will be stocked at stores across the UK. And despite only just launching, the supermarket already has plans to expand the line, and says it will monitor customers’ response to gauge what sort of toys should come next.

But why, you ask? Firstly, it’s an astute business move . The global female sex toys market size was estimated at a whopping $435m at the end of 2017, with analysts predicting it will reach $550m by 2022.. But Sainsbury’s also has a more personal – and quite frankly, commendable – interest: namely, improving their customers’ sex lives.

 
The idea reportedly came after Sainsbury’s latest Living Well Index – a major study conducted by Oxford Economics and the National Centre for Social Research – found that one in three Brits aren’t satisfied when it comes to matters of the bedroom. And it’s affecting their happiness: the report also revealed that sex life satisfaction, alongside sleep, is one of the strongest indicators of how well a person is living.

This year's report – the second ever conducted – showed that found wellbeing in the UK had fallen since the Living Well Index launched last year, with the most significant decreases in people’s perceived well-being in the ‘relationships’ and ‘social connections’ categories. Step in Sainsbury’s…

In an official statement, the supermarket’s Food Commercial Director, Paul Mills-Hicks referenced the Living Well Index, saying: "We are always on the lookout for new opportunities to help our customers live well for less and they've told us that sexual wellbeing is an area they would like to see more choice in.”

He added that Sainsbury’s hopes to give its customers the “option to buy quickly and conveniently in an environment they feel comfortable with”. And while we’re not quite sure just how comfortable we’d walking round the aisles with a shiny pink vibrator in our trolley, we can’t fault the sentiment behind stocking sex toys on supermarket shelves.