Good Ol’ Country Store Offering Sexual Aids

In Weston, Vermont, a family business is going through some inner turmoil. The Orton family has run the Vermont Country Store catalog for over 60 years providing customers with such hard-to-find products as magnetic back support belts, neti pots, ear wax removal products, bed bug spray and ice breaker mats. Most customers receive their catalog via good ol’ snail mail and have been loyal customers for years buying their all-natural home remedies and delicious country candies from the Vermont Country Store; however, a recent addition has made some customers promptly cancel their subscriptions to their previously beloved catalog while other customers race to open up their pocketbooks. In an effort to ramp up customer response, the proprietor of the store, Lyman Orton, began to include an “Intimate Solutions” selection of sexual aids. And, boy, did he get a customer response!

The new selection offers such products as how-to sex videos, gels and creams to arouse and enhance pleasure and multi-speed vibrators. The introduction of the new racy catalog offerings has caused previously loyal customers to cancel their subscriptions and send letters and place phone calls announcing their displeasure with the catalog’s new products. Cabot Orton, the son of Lyman, states, “It’s hard to read the customer letters. It makes me a little ill, really.” The catalog was first introduced in 1945 as a small mailer and has grown into a multi-million dollar company with two stores in Vermont. Despite the negative feedback, Lyman admits that the idea to include the new items was his and states, “We never got any letters saying we want this. This was a sense, because our customers are a certain age and sex is below the surface in the world we deal in. I said ‘Look, let’s see if our customers respond to this.’”

Lyman’s family was not all in agreement over the addition of the new offerings. His son Cabot stated, “We thought he was crazy. We thought he was out of his mind.” His other son Eliot admits that the family still wrestles with the issue. Even those outside the family, including George Hague, a marketing strategist for J. Schmid & Associates, chimed in, “It certainly would seem at odds with their wholesome, good-old-days approach. Anytime you stray beyond what is your marketing niche, there’s always a concern.”

There was a mixed response from their customers. There were those who eagerly bought up the new products and then those who sent in heated letters wanting to be removed from the mailing list. One customer wrote, “The intimate massagers are certainly not what will uplift the youth of America but instead will lead them to be perverted pleasure seekers. Please rethink what you are doing.” Another woman wrote, “I am one of the women who respects her God-given human femininity. These items are offensive to me.” Lyman estimates he received well over 600 mostly critical letters from the public after standing up the new products. Lyman responded, “You’d think I suggested that we sell nuclear devices to terrorists.” Despite all the hoopla, the items have proven to be quick-sellers. Says, Lyman’s son Cabot, “It turns out they wanted these products, and they spoke with their wallets.”