Mrs Winfield, the Ann Summers of the north

She's already done Rochdale and Bury, and has plans for Crewe. Ian Herbert meets the woman behind Europe's biggest sex shop

You would expect to find it in Amsterdam, or maybe Hamburg, but Europe's biggest sex shop has just opened ... in Oldham.

Once just a humble mill town, Oldham's new claim to fame is more risqué. And while the princely sum of £3,000 will buy the contents of an entire second-hand car forecourt in some parts of northern England, in Oldham you can now spend that much on an S&M bed, replete with chains and PVC sheets.

The town's newest shop, which appears to offer nothing more salacious than brightly coloured nighties in its window, is the creation of Suzanne Winfield, 42, a mother of three who is quietly laying claim to the title of the Ann Summers of the North.

Her store, Simply Pleasure, – the third in a chain which began in Bury and branched out into Rochdale – puts Oldham, five miles north-east of Manchester, into the premiership of sex shops. It's second only to the Hustler store on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, in an industry where size definitely matters.

Mrs Winfield's locations don't sound like hotbeds of passion. But the 3,000sq ft Oldham store raked in more than £40,000 in its first week – with customers spending an average of £50 a time. Stockport, Preston and Crewe are already being eyed as the next parts of the multi-million-pound Simply Pleasure empire.

Mrs Winfield, the mother of 27-month-old twins and a one-year old daughter, figured she was on to something when she took over an ailing sex shop in Bury last March. She managed to persuade customers of the beauty therapy business that she's run for 15 years to confide some of their carnal secrets.

They told her there were still only two genres of shop: the Ann Summers variety, where lingerie is abundant but S&M gear non-existent and videos are available for "educational" use only; or the establishment commonly known to northerners as the "mucky bookshop", devoid of windows and full of long macs.

Mrs Winfield wanted to offer clothes and videos in a store with windows and shopping baskets. Her Bury establishment turned over more than £1m to 31 January.

"Light, bright, airy – not intimidating – that's what we want," Mrs Winfield insisted last week. "And women – we wanted it orientated towards the women," she said, armed with customer analysis to demonstrate that when it comes to sex shops women wear the leather trousers. A 71.4 per cent majority of her sex shop customers are couples – most of whose purchase decisions are led by women; 22 per cent are women shopping on their own and just 7 per cent are men.

There's already evidence of the same trend in Oldham, where a "soft" Ann Summers-style ground floor leads to the first floor with videos and an S&M parlour. Last week, 70 per cent of videos were sold to women or couples. The Buxom Wench suit, at £28.95, was easily the most popular item of clothing.

Then there are the professionals, from the couple (late 20s, Audi TT) who bought the £3,000 bed, to those who have bought a £1,500 S&M straitjacket and a £1,600 bondage chair. "They actually said it's for a fun piece of garden furniture," said Mrs Winfield.

Her insistence on providing free drinks and leather couchettes to recline in on the "hard core" floor delivers the uninitiated into the realms of the bizarre, as they sip coffee to the sights and sounds of a pornographic video. The multitude of books for sale in the coffee area – including The Function of the Orgasm or Mars & Venus in the Bedroom – gives the shop something of a Waterstones atmosphere. But there are no hard-core magazines. "They're a kick-back to mucky bookshops," said Mrs Winfield.

Even if her gamble doesn't pay off, a lot of people will have had some fun. Like the dozens who have left Oldham with an "Inflatable Wife" ("low-maintenance partner for a stress-free, easy life") or "The Perfect Mate" ("a mouth with no teeth and a holder for your beer").