The key to pet store success

The pet food sector has the largest market share in the pet industry and is increasing every year. Under the epidemic, offline store operations have become difficult to become the norm, but the consumption of pet food is still gaining.

Rapid expansion of pet food market

In the entire pet market, the proportion of pet food is the largest, at 33.83%. As China's pet industry enters a period of rapid development, China's pet food market is also growing at an annual rate of about 20%. The scale of China's pet food in 2018 was 59.4 billion yuan, and it is expected to exceed 70 billion in 2019. The growth rate of China's pet market in 2018-2023 is generally increasing year by year. It is predicted that the scale of China's pet market will exceed 259 billion yuan in 2020.

With the general trend of pet consumption upgrade and the continuous increase in the number of pets in China, the categories of the pet food consumer market are becoming more and more abundant, and the consumption structure of pet food has also undergone tremendous changes. The refinement of pet life has become a new hot spot in consumer trends.

With the general trend of pet consumption upgrade and the continuous increase in the number of pets in China, the categories of the pet food consumer market are becoming more and more abundant, and the consumption structure of pet food has also undergone tremendous changes. The refinement of pet life has become a new hot spot in consumer trends

In recent years, China ’s pet parents have gradually become younger. The “post-80s” and “post-90s” groups have become the main groups of pet parents, accounting for nearly 80%. Due to the changing of life style, more and more people regard pets as their families and friends. The pet ’s role gradually changes from pet to “companion” and begins to become indispensable in human life.

More and more pet owners have begun to pay attention to pet health. After adding various emotional factors, pet owners have also pursued quality in the choice of pet food. The "consumption upgrade" in the pet industry has become the general trend and the pursuit of pet nutritional quality It just meets the core needs of pet owners.

Three stages of China pet food development:

(1) Age of leftovers: When pets were raised in the early days, domestic pet foods were not popular. Pets mainly used human leftovers as food, but human diets have a lot of oil, salt, and various flavoring agents. It is a great burden on the pet ’s body, and it is likely to cause various kidney and vascular diseases; and because human food is mostly soft, it does not require excessive chewing. It is also extremely detrimental to the pet ’s dental health, and can easily induce gum atrophy and tooth loss as well as other oral problems.

(2) Era of Commercial Food: Pet food is a dry food made by extruding, heating, crushing, and bonding raw materials. With the promotion of pet food in recent years, commercial pet food has become popular. Professional pet food guarantees nutrition and palatability, while also making it easier for pets to digest and meet pets' molars and oral cleaning needs. 

(3) The era of customized pet food: At this stage, not only are there more and more commercial food on the market, but the functional division of natural foods, commercial foods, grain-free foods, and prescription foods is getting finer and finer. The customized pet food industry chain has more targeted solutions to pet nutrition needs, and pet food has entered a new stage.

At the beginning of 2020, the pet industry has been severely impacted by the epidemic. The supervision of the pet industry has also been tightened in various places, which has a great impact on companies in the industry, especially pet stores and pet hospitals. Major pet production and management companies are facing multiple difficulties such as logistics and transportation difficulties, as well as difficulty in matching production and sales. The number of customers in offline stores has shrunk sharply, and sales have plummeted. Pet nutrition has a high degree of marketization, less control, and rapid development. Providing customized nutrition services with more value may become another outlet for store development.