Williams and his boyfriend of six years are two of the store's three employees, and half of Tykables ownership group. Once you get past that novelty of the product and its niche market, managing the Tykables storefront is a fairly mundane operation. They don't realize that it's an adult diaper, because it looks so authentic."Ĭustomers can order the diapers in ten-count bags, which sell for $25 a pop, or in a half-case or full-case boxes, at $75 and $135 respectively. "I've had customers go there, and they go to buy ours, but our diapers are in the baby diaper section. If the label becomes damaged or something, and it cannot get to its destination, they bring it there and sell whatever it is," Williams said. "UPS has a warehouse out in Salt Lake City, where all the lost packages end up going. Tykables' diapers are such an authentic take on traditional baby brands that companies sometimes confuse them with infant and toddler models. The diapers are printed with stars surrounding Tykables' three signature characters-a lion, tiger, and bear-which disappear with moisture. Six months later, he unveiled a new innovation, the Waddler Overnight: the first adult diaper featuring fade-when-wet designs. The inside of the Tykables store, which looks like an adult nursery No one did it before, and now, with the exception of one, the entire industry has copied us." "There are now six other brands that now have printed bags and do edge-to-edge print. We looked like the name brand next to everybody else's store brand," Williams told me. "We had a landing zone for re-enforcement for multiple fastenings. "We had features that other people had, but no one diaper had all of them," he said, listing qualities like standing leak guards, front and rear waistbands, and oversize tape. Williams's passion for the ABDL lifestyle gave him an edge over competitors who were, in his words, trying to make fetish diapers "for as little as possible." "We definitely pushed the envelope on that one." "We were actually the first company, which the exception of one that went out of business very quickly, to do an allover, edge-to-edge printed adult diaper," he continued. "In 2010, another company came out with one that actually did have a print on the plastic, which was pretty new for the way they did it." It was still a white diaper," Williams explained. "The first company that produced an ABDL-specific product that was printed, it was back in 2007. Williams claims the Waddler differed radically from everything then available on the market and immediately catapulted him into the vanguard of ABDL merchants. His first product was a diaper called the Waddler, which he unveiled at the legendary annual San Francisco–based leather and BDSM gathering Folsom Street Fair in September 2014. Williams shows off a selection of products from his store. "We were about a week away from producing our first diaper line products back in 2007, before the stock market crash," Williams told me. Later, he tried in earnest to bring ABDL-friendly diapers to market, but the economy crashed just before the product's launch date. He never made them, but after he sold the site, he couldn't shake the concept. He first considered developing diapers made specifically for adults who enjoyed baby play shortly after building an ABDL-themed website. The difference is mine is not a substance." They're vices that help you deal with stress in some way. Not to oversimplify it, but some people drink, some people do drugs. That's really the best way of putting it. "It was definitely a way for me to cope with certain things that were going on in my life at the time… kind of an escape. "I've worn diapers 24/7 for about 14 years now," he told me. Customers drive from as far away as Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan to visit the store.įor Williams, who goes by "Tod" (short for toddler), Tykables is the culmination of several years of planning. But the retail storefront is also one of the few nonjudgmental spaces for ABDLs to express themselves outside their homes. It's no secret that brick-and-mortar stores are quickly being phased out by online shopping, and Williams acknowledges that Tykables is primarily an e-commerce business, where most of the revenue comes from selling adult diapers online.
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