Sex and the city: Roddick to take her adult shops online

Sam Roddick, the daughter of the Bodyshop's late founder, Anita Roddick, is to turn her sex shop company into an internet focused business to take advantage of the boom in online sales.

Roddick is also concentrating on holding more "salon lessons" – classes on sex and relationships – in her Coco de Mer shops. The classes have been a big hit with both singles and couples. She has two London shops and one in New York.

Online sales are already up 15 per cent on last year, but Roddick wants to grow Coco de Mer's internet presence, it now makes up 23 per cent of sales. Roddick recently signed up to NatWest's Women in Business service, which runs an advice and mentoring service to support female entrepreneurs. She says: "At present, the only way women can succeed in business is to emulate men. What is crippling women in business is women's confidence levels."

Roddick, who left school aged 15, was a radical anarchist working in Canada for 10 years, before she launched Coco de Mer a decade ago.