The pet supplies industry embodies some of the best segments for growth. It is one of the very few markets where direct-to-consumer brands and the more established platforms like Amazon and Chewy – are both witnessing growth in some form.
The pandemic restated what is already known – pet supplies will remain an essential need for the market. The demand is resilient, and humans seeking more time with their pets will only grow from here. This is reflected in the over 150% demand growth registered by cat and dog food brands in just the United States.
The challenge is that manageable entry barriers allow smaller brands to fulfill the local demand at a small scale and the mega-brands to go after the more significant market segments. The global pet food market reached $97 billion in 2020 and will grow by 4.8% annually till 2026. This means that while the demand is big enough to accommodate everyone, growth will be scarce.
Significant Challenges in the Pet Supplies Industry
While looking at the market, any observer can conclude that it has enough space for small and medium-sized brands to grow. However, the industry does not have its share of challenges:
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Competitive Market and Slow Growth
The global pet supplies market has some giants like Colgate-Palmolive, Nestle, J. M. Smucker Company, Mars, Blue Buffalo, and a few others. It also has marketplaces like Chewy and Amazon, which are now launching their private brands. Then there are the upstart direct-to-consumer brands along with the more established suppliers. The market growth is still projected to be under 5% for the next five years. This means that competition will remain stiff, and growth will remain accessible only to a few brands.
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Need for Product Diversity Resulting in Inventory Management Challenges
Pet supplies require diversity on two levels – targeting the specific pet and then providing alternatives in flavors & ingredients. For instance, there is dog food and cat food, and then there is a particular flavor under both categories. This makes it critical for pet supplies businesses to have proactive insights into the most profitable and demanded product categories & SKUs.
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Compliance Costs
Even though pet supplies cater to animals, it does not lower the compliance bar for the brands. Manufacturers, packers, suppliers, and marketplaces have to ensure the quality, ingredients, and freshness of the products remains well within the guidelines established by bodies like FDA in the USA.
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Managing Product Quality and Dealing with Reverse Logistics
The nature of offerings and the ingredients used mean that some products will come with a limited shelf-life. Businesses have to ensure these are moving out of the supply chain as soon as possible, or they will attract both inventory losses because of expiration and reverse logistics costs when expired products are returned.
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Meeting with the Sudden Surge in Some Pockets of Demand
COVID-19 posed a unique challenge that may seem like a problem every business wants – surging demands. The businesses sitting on inventory or had access to greater manufacturing capacities capitalized on the surging demand. Only the businesses with considerable access to customer data and trends will separate the secular growth in demand from the pandemic-catalysed demand, which might not be equally sustainable.
Using OrderCircle for Unobstructed Growth in the Pet Supplies Business
While the pet supplies industry’s challenges may seem unique and unparalleled, such issues have analogies in other consumer-facing industries. OrderCircle was engineered as a unified solution to target each one of these challenges with finesse:
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Enter or Expand in B2B with the OrderCircle B2B Portal.
B2B is an essential avenue for pet supplies brands’ growth. It provides reliable revenue streams and quicker movement of inventory. With the OrderCircle B2B Ecommerce Portal, you can make this process all the more seamless for your buyers with an easily configurable and engaging on-website display. You can provide custom prices to buyer groups based on order quantity and relations. The platform also allows you to provide an easy reordering process that reduces the hassle of repeating your customers’ orders. And to put it all in place, it seamlessly integrates with your accounting system and provides you insights into buyer credit history.
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Access Multidimensional Growth with Omnichannel Operations.
An omnichannel distribution that optimally integrates physical and online operations can unlock value for any brand, irrespective of its scale. However, getting the optimal balance is the core challenge. OrderCircle empowers you to do this with greater visibility in your sales, logistics, and operations provided by features like Shipment Tracking, Inventory Management, and Customer Management. Pair that with the B2B eCommerce portal, and you have a ready-to-leverage omnichannel operation.
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Streamline Inventories with Proactive Alerts & Reminders for Perishable Goods.
A large portion of pet supplies consists of products with a fixed shelf-life. When these products are not shipped in time, your business has to endure the cost of manufacturing them, transporting them, and storing them as a loss. OrderCircle provides proactive alerts & reminders on the inventory that should be pushed out before the next lot is sold with the Inventory Management feature. Whether you use LIFO or FIFO, you will always have insights on which products you should ship in what order
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Seamless Integration.
Platform integration can be a significant challenge for businesses focusing on growth. OrderCircle seamlessly integrates with QuickBooks, Shipstation, Xero, PayPal, Authjorize.net, and Stripe. You also get comprehensive support to ensure your onboarding process is frictionless and generates value from day one of your OrderCircle-empowered operations.
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Unlock Enterprise-Scale Intelligence with the OrderCircle Dashboard.
The competitive landscape in the pet supplies industry dictates the dynamics of the market. There will be pockets of opportunities accessible for limited periods to a small set of brands. Only the business with access to the right data-points will make strategic and tactical decisions for making the most out of these scarce opportunities.
OrderCircle Analytics provides you with visually-rich, accessible, and federated insights on your store performance, sales team performance, and customer-level analytics. This can be used to create and test strategies and identify issues that should be immediately addressed or initiatives that should be scaled. Transform your data into ‘knowledge currency’ and invest it in your decision-making processes.
In Conclusion
The global pet supplies industry’s growth rate of under 5% can barely provide enough room for growth to all the companies in the market. Only a handful of the large, medium, and small-scale brands in the manufacturing, distribution, or direct-to-consumer segments will be able to beat these growth projections and generate value. OrderCircle, with its comprehensive set of features that encompass inventory, invoice, store, customer, logistics, and accounts management, ensures that your business is one of the few ones that will experience unparalleled growth in the industry.
To know more about how OrderCircle can help you unlock your growth potential, click here.