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As featured in the January 2003 edition of AVN:PROFILE

Williams Trading Company: Serious Sex Toy Concern

PENNSAUKEN, N.J. - If Horatio Alger had written a dirty novel, the main character could have been Robert Pyne. Over the last 40 or so years, Pyne, the owner and founder of Williams Trading Company, built a family-run porno and novelty distribution empire through hard work, careful planning and good fortune.

Pyne's involvement in adult-oriented businesses began in the dark ages of smut and continues through the digital age and into the future.

"I've been in this for a lot of years," Pyne tells AVN. "I was in general merchandise originally... it may have been '62 or '64. Me and another guy bought two gross of four-band radios. Bought 'em for $13 apiece, and that Thursday, Corvettes started selling four-band radios for $12.95. I was stuck with a lot of radios; so we traded 50 film reels for the radios.

"I gave 'em to all my hustlers to look at, and they sold. I told my guys, `sell 'em for $50 each. Not a penny less.' They all sold out the first day, so I said, 'I've been in the wrong business' ... there were only two [film] labs then; one was in Brooklyn and one was in New York. California was nothing."

From there, Pyne started selling 8mm stag loops, dirty "pocket-books," magazines, and eventually, novelties. "Williams Trading started in 1972," says Pyne. "Back then, there were 250 novelties in all, now we're carrying between eight and 10 thousand."

Presently, Williams Trading Company, based in Pennsauken, NJ, boasts 35 employees and successfully completed and shipped over 145,000 customer orders last year, according to the company's website (www.muffsandcuffs.com).

Not bad for a company that began from the trunk of a car. Of course the 8mm stag loops are now a thing of the past; Williams trading company currently deals in VHS and DVD, but the majority of its sales are in adult novelties.

"The things that have really picked up lately are the novelties, and the DVDs," Pyne says. "Jack Rabbits outsell everything by leaps and bounds."

One of Pyne's techniques for longevity and profitability is maintaining a sales staff with the kind of knowledge and experience only gained through years of work in the trenches of sales.

"On our sales force, one guy, Bob has been with me for 21 years," says Pyne. "Ronnie has been around like 20 years. Paul's been here around 18."

"Our sales force is known throughout the industry," says Pyne's son, Robert Jr. "They're very knowledgeable. The main thing we sell, more than anything else, is the service. Retailers love us for that reason."

Another way of maintaining a successful business over the long haul is to keep it in the family. Robert Pyne Jr. currently runs the company's day-to-day operations. Another son, Rich, is in charge of the company's mail order and Internet operations. Yet another son, Billy Pyne, oversees the company's stores and warehouse, while son-in-law John Anderson is Williams' main buyer, and daughter Beth Smith is in charge of inventory control.

"I came in in 1996," Pyne Jr. says, "And at that point, my father wanted to just make a major expansion and be a major player as a distributor. It's grown tenfold since we've started this expansion. We've just grown unbelievably, from a 6000 square foot warehouse, to a 35,000 foot warehouse, which we're outgrowing now. We'll be looking for something else, probably double that size."

Like most other enterprises, the way Pyne's company does business has been changed by the Internet. Williams' website, for instance, is allowing the company to expand even further.

"The Internet has made [sex toys] more acceptable," Pyne Jr. says. "People in the closet can stay in the closet and get stuff delivered right to their doors. They don't have to go out to the store to buy things, they can go right on the Internet."

"We're Internet fulfillment," says Pyne Jr. "Drop-shipping directly to the end user and people who own websites. It's not an affiliate program. We control the prices and we control the discounts based on volume. We're able to fulfill roughly 3000 orders a week. Our fill rate is like 95% or 96%, and we have good people working for us." Look for Williams to have an even greater presence on the Internet in the future.

"I've been around a lot longer than a lot of people," the elder Pyne reflects. "It's a good business."

Stephen Ochs