Adult Designs Direct review: sex toy stores from $499

Adult Designs Direct packages: Bronze, Silver and Gold

• Bronze, $499 ($250 upfront, $249 on completion): store template on the in-house Adult Shopping platform, logo placement, two logo mockups. About a week.
• Silver, $1,200 ($600 and $600): store on WordPress, graphic customization, two logo mockups, a social media branding kit. 1.5 to 2 weeks.
• Gold, $2,000 ($1,000 and $1,000): Silver plus ten hours of WordPress design, extra security and SEO, three logo mockups. 1.5 to 2 weeks.

Each package is sold as a "fully-stocked sex toy and DVD" store, and the product catalog updates itself.

What it costs to run the store

Adult Designs Direct charges no monthly or yearly fees and no dropship fees. Hosting and a merchant account are on you: about $20 a month for WordPress hosting on Silver and Gold, with Hostwinds as the recommended host, plus $11 to $14 for the domain. Extra work runs $105 an hour for design and $125 an hour for technical fixes, billed in 15-minute blocks, with a $35 minimum on any request.

Ownership and payment terms

The store is 100% yours once the project is done: you set prices, products and shipping, and Adult Designs Direct is no affiliate program. The admin login is handed over only after every invoice is paid, there are no credit terms, and GigglesWorld alone decides when a project counts as complete. The studio does not offer marketing consulting after launch. The order form only accepts US state addresses.

Red flags on the Adult Designs Direct website

The about, services and portfolio pages still carry demo content from the Avada WordPress theme: an "international firm of architects, planners and interior designers", skill bars in percentages and architecture projects dated 2015. No completed adult store appears anywhere on the site. Two FAQ answers, on how orders are handled and who supplies the products, read "XXXXX".

Adult Designs Direct strengths and limitations