LELO pleasure products aren’t cheap. It’s fair to say we’re often asked why that is. What justifies the price difference between a $50 sex toy and a $100 LELO sex toy? It’s a fair question.
There’s one short answer, and several longer answers. The short answer is that it comes down to production, and how LELO makes its sex toys.
Unfortunately, the production of a $50 sex toy is almost certainly contracted out to a manufacturing plant in Shenzhen, China, from components sometimes made in other, smaller, less reputable plants around China.
There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s completely normal, and everything around you right now, from that ballpoint pen on your desk to the USB cable charging your phone, is probably made in Shenzhen, or at least assembled there.
Shenzhen is a massive city, with a population of New York and Los Angeles combined, and it’s almost entirely dedicated to the production of almost every consumer product you interact with on a daily basis.
Contracting production out to a factory 8,000 miles away brings the costs down, but it comes with risks. You have almost no control over their manufacturer, or from where the factory is sourcing their components, or who’s working on the production floor, or the conditions under which they’re assembled, or the materials from which they’re made.
A $50 sex toy might claim to be made from ‘medical grade silicone,’ but it’s difficult for a sex toy company to know for sure. After all, while the sex toy company is trying to cut costs as much as possible to make as much profit as they can, the factories are trying to do exactly the same. In fact, many less expensive sex toy brands that you might think are competitors are actually using the same facilities and the same factories.
LELO, as you might expect, does things a little differently. We’ve had our own production facilities from our earliest days, and have grown exponentially since then.
Now, our 12,000 square meter factory is situated in the gorgeous cit of Suzhou, just outside Shanghai, where we also have a major global office. It’s also right next to the Samsung factory.
Because we own our facility, we have complete control over the production process environment in which they’re made. Our engineers are all well-trained and experts at what they do.
Making a LELO sex toy is a long and expensive process, because it’s worth it, and we know that you can feel the difference. LELO products are an investment in your body, intimacy, and personal pleasure. Because of that, our components are made from high quality, body-safe materials, by skilled engineers.
We make everything ourselves, from start to finish. There’s no other big sex toy company that can say the same.
How does all the passion we put into our production translate to you, and the choice you’re trying to make between a $50 sex toy and a LELO?
The connection between your LELO and your body is sacred to us, and we take our responsibility with seriousness. The design process at LELO is more extensive that our competitors, which is why we don’t often release new products. Only a few a year, usually.
We want our products to be the best that they can be before they’re available to customers. Our SONA Cruise, for example, took over two years to design and produce. Our HEX condoms took seven years.
We have a different approach to design at LELO, a different philosophy. We might be a global brand now, but we’re still Swedish in nature. Stockholm is where our heart is. We’re still very much European in our culture. We think it’s more important to get it just right, than to just get it done.
And we leave it up to you to decide if your pleasure from LELO is worth it.