Ann Summers info on the website company
Ann Summers is the most successful British chain of High street sex
shops.
As an unlicensed sex shop under British law, it means only a small
proportion of the available product lines can be sex toys and the range of pornography
sold is strictly limited in both volume and content.
History
The
company was named after the female secretary of the male founder and has always
targeted female consumers.
Having worked at Royal Doulton, Jacqueline Gold decided she did not want to go into management, and asked her father David Gold to gain extra work experience. After acquiring the four stores of the "Ann Summers" chain in 1972 with his brother Ralph Gold, they gave Jacqueline at the age of 19 summer work experience in May 1979 - Jacqueline was paid £45 a week, less than the tea lady.
As her parents had separated when she was 12, Jacqueline was not close to her father. Gold also didn't like the atmosphere at Ann Summers, which was Gold Group's up market clean sex shop. But a chance visit to a Tupperware-style fashion party in an east London flat in 1981 changed everything - Jacqueline saw the potential of selling sexy lingerie and sex toys to women in the privacy of their own homes. Jacqueline launched the Ann Summers Party Plan - a home marketing plan for sex toys, with a strict "no men allowed" policy. These parties were and remain immensely popular, providing women with an excuse to meet for a party and talk about sex, and have entered British popular culture. They also provided the company with a way of circumventing the law which limited their presentation space for sex toys.
Jacqueline was made a director of the company in 1987, and in 1993 became Managing Director. Jacqueline transformed the chain into a multi-million pound business, with a sales force today of over 7,500 women as party organisers; 136 high street stores in the UK, Ireland, Channel Islands and one each in Spain and Australia; with an annual turnover of £155 million. In 1999 the chain opened its website, and in 2000 it acquired the five stores of the Knickerbox brand and its range of premium site lingerie kiosks - "Knickerbox" concessions are now in every Ann Summers store.
The company employs a series of celebrity models to show off its lingerie, who presently include Kate Lawler, Nancy Sorrell and Emma B.
Controversy
Due to
the adult nature of the stores, Ann Summers has faced a lot of opposition, both
legal and social. For example, when attempting to open a new store in Tunbridge
Wells, they were accused of degrading marriage. In 2003, they won a legal battle
to advertise for employees in job centres.
Ann Summers in Perth was forced to close after the local people complained about the store (mostly from parents embarrassed by questions raised by their children) which also led to other problems with the store. This makes Perth the only UK city where an Ann Summers store failed to take off.
In 2007, the company faced legal issues with Apple Inc due
to its release of an electronic add-on to music players called the iGasm. The
company has not backed down despite cease and desist orders by Apple
Trivia
The
Ann Summers store in Liverpool city centre is the former home of Beatles manager
Brian Epstein's record store NEMS.
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