"You did what!?"

In mid 2012, me and the team at Wolfgang Digital decided it would be a great idea to become our own customer. The plan was to open our own online store and "hire" ourselves to market it, giving us a chance to view our work from a fresh perspective.

The objectives of the "be our own customer project" were to:

• Walk a mile in our customer's shoes.

• Create a resource that could be a vehicle for our wildest ideas (digital marketing ideas, of course).

• Have a website for new recruits to muck around with for training purposes.

• Break even or make a little bit of money.

• Learn, learn, learn.

So how did we go from having this great idea to selling sex toys across Ireland?

Our criteria for selecting which retail business to get into were:

• High search volumes on Google.

• Average transaction values above €50.

• Low degree of big brand competition.

• Customers likely to research and purchase online

• Availability of "exact match top level domain" (it was 2012, you see).

So we narrowed our potential venture down to four options: iPhoneCases, CoffeeStop, TheSexShop and FaveFiveBoysToys. Then we measured them against the criteria explained above.

. Photograph: .

Both IphoneCases and TheSexShop satisfied many of the criteria, but it was the high average transaction (ATV) for sex toys that swung it for TheSexShop.ie. That accompanied by the fact that people are incentivised to buy online to avoid the embarrassment of passers by sniggering at you as you scarper down the street with a bag tucked into your armpit.

We chose to position ourselves as retailers of high-end, luxury electrical devices. With this in mind, we selected a white minimalist design similar to the Apple website in look and feel (yes seriously). Being a classy operation, we made a conscious decision to have no nudity on the website. We also elected to avoid pornography and focus solely on sex toys.

The difficult bits

We started with Shopify, which made getting started really easy and really cheap. However, we weren't too happy depending exclusively on Paypal for payment and felt this was one of the main reasons we were getting a very low conversion rate (less than 0.5%). So we embarked on the mammoth ordeal of getting a merchant account and then a payment processor on the website. This was and continues to be a painful experience, and my heart bleeds for businesses dependent on these processes for their bread and butter.

A related pain point we've experienced is the dreaded fraud letter. Occasionally, four weeks after a product has been shipped, we get a letter from Barclaycard informing us that the credit card holder has signed a document to say they had never ordered the item – and therefore Barclaycard will not be paying us the funds. Of course, we have already paid for clicks and shipping the product, leaving us with a rather large loss. Asking for the product back is no use – returns aren't sought after in the sex-toy business. The really sickening part was that the "defrauded" customers were often people we'd had email contact with after they ordered and prior to shipping.

The funny parts

I can't deny that our online sex toy shop has delivered many a giggle in the Wolfgang office. Very shortly after we put a phone number on the website (because customer service is king) "The Sex Line" started to ring. First up was the Irish Independent, who went on to publish tips from our resident "sexpert" Brendan Almack in an article on sex toys.

Hot Press called next and TheSexShop featured in their annual sex issue. In between journalists and heavy breathers, we've had calls from people wanting us to meet them with their order in remote car parks – no thanks, pal – and a prank call (we hope) from a man who'd put a mini vibe where the sun doesn't shine and was having serious trouble getting it back out.

Of course, everybody in the office has developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of sex toys. At the Dublin Web Summit an excited delegate showed me a picture of a small device and said: "You will never guess what that thing is." I replied: "Why that's the We-Vibe 2!"

What we learned

1: The power of trends

Shortly after we launched, the book 50 Shades of Grey became the most talked-about publication on the planet. This meant sex toys were suddenly incredibly topical. We utilised this in two ways: firstly, as a PR vehicle to get our new name out in the press; and secondly, by putting together 50 Shades of Grey bondage bundles to monetise the huge number of search queries for the book.

2: The importance of Average Transaction Value (ATV)

Click costs can be expensive, so ATV is often the difference between a profitable sale and an unprofitable sale. Influencing ATV is key to sustaining profitability. Our 50 Shades packages allowed us to control ATV. We expanded upon this "bundles" strategy at Christmas when we sold the world's first "Sex Toy Hampers". What a proud moment for the Wolfgang crew and our families.

3: Rural Ireland has a very high propensity to buy online (Hello Tipperary!)

Also Glaswegians are screaming lunatics for large, "realistic" toys. Check out our infographic on Ireland's appetite for sex toys.

4: The importance of depth of product range

Initially we tried to curate a sophisticated selection of sex toys. Based on customer queries we rapidly realised there is no accounting for tastes. So we pivoted from the limited curated range tactic and we rapidly expanded our stock of sex toys to such an extent that we couldn't begin to understand how to use a number of the gizmos we were flogging. Conversion rate increased in parallel with product range expanding.

5: Different industry, different rules

We found that product specific keywords, eg "jelly jammers", didn't convert nearly as well as generic searches (sex shop Ireland), which any search marketer will tell you is highly unusual.

6: Drop shipping is super-efficient

We started off holding some stock, but eventually decided drop shipping would be the best option when it became clear fulfilment would be difficult.

7: Retail is labour intensive

I don't know how you retailers do it. Sourcing products, customer care, uploading products, creating unique descriptions, pricing in a dynamic marketplace. Getting the fine detail right across a tumultuous ocean of complex activities seems to be the key to success. It must be a huge relief to find trustworthy partners to shoulder the workload.

8: Selling online is fun!

The euphoria in Wolfgang office on 20 June 2012, when our first order came in, was indescribable. We'd gone from idea to first purchase inside of four weeks! We'd just sold a vibrator sitting in a warehouse in the UK to a lady in County Clare whom we'd never met – and if we could do that, well, we felt we could do just about anything.

What does this mean to you?

If you are a digital marketer, why not consider being your own customer? It's pretty cheap and easy to set up a website on Shopify and find a drop shipper. It's actually a very useful exercise in navel gazing, you'll be an awful lot more empathetic with the pain points your customers are feeling and you'll have a deeper understanding of which of their desires you can satisfy (pun intended).

Alan Coleman is CEO of Wolfgang Digital. This post originally appeared on the Wolfgang Digital blog and has been republished with the consent of the author.

Get more articles like this sent direct to your inbox by signing up for free membership to the Guardian Media Network – brought to you by Guardian Professional.