Closer relationship between animals and owners boost specialty stores

With the increasing rapprochement between pets and owners, the trend for retail pet is the specialist shops to gain ever more space. To work around this situation, super and hypermarkets need to improve strategies for the segment, with diversification of products and the provision of services.
According to the new survey of CVA Solutions, obtained exclusively by the DCI, the super and hypermarkets have lost space between consumers of pet products. In 2014, this kind of store was the preference for 35.2% of the respondents who had dog to 30.2% in 2016 and 26.8% in 2018. Among the owners of cats, the curve was not different, going from 44.1% in 2014 to 28.3% in 2018. Both hit in 2018 under 30% stake.
On the contrary, the pet shops of neighborhood are increasingly close to achieve 40% representation among the regulars. Among the respondents of the survey, the site came out of level of 35.1% among dog owners to 37.4% in 2018. Among those who have domestic cats, the number jumped from 34.2% to 37.1%.
In the explanation of the Managing Director of CVA Solutions, Sandro Cimatti, besides the considerable increase of pet shops open in recent years, particularly by unemployment increase in the number of entrepreneurs, he points out that there is a change in Brazilian culture. "The pet went from company to friend, later member of the family and now is considered a child. There is a bridge between the feeling of closeness and spent carefully. You sell more on service and brand chosen, "says Cimatti.
According to the survey, the Group of respondents who consider the animal as a child reached 32.5%, 9.8 percentage points (p.p.) higher than that seen in 2014. Who already considers a friend was 18.5% to 15.5%.
"Since the first trend [of pet approach and your owner] has happened, the second phase is that people will take to the vet and then buy more drugs, quality products and services. The product mix tends to increase and this favors the specialized channel ", says the Executive.
For the super and hypermarkets can compete with the specialized retail, Cimatti believes they should react more quickly to the loss of space between the pet owners, increasing the mix of products, brands and physical space dedicated to this customer spend monthly on average R $121 in feed for dogs and R $90 for cats.
"They [super and hipemercados] have control of space and diversification of products, but not in the provision of services. Even so, can do cross-operations or establish partnerships with veterinarians or companies with the expertise, "comments.
Currently, the average frequency of visits to the vet in the period of 12 months is 2.2 times as much between owners of dogs as cats.
According to the research, the mega pet shops also have gained relevance, but not in the same proportion, especially by the penetration of the Country, which is a lot shorter than the neighborhood stores. Among the owners of dogs and cats, these stores represent 17.6% and 17.5%, respectively.
New investments
Along with this quest for greater care, he points out that there is another trend that should occur in parallel: the increased search for animal health plan. For him, there is a great demand potential, both for the low penetration of the product in the pet population [which was 3.1% in 2016 to 8.7% in 2018], and the pent-up demand.
According to analysis of the CVA, when asked the respondents why don't have animal health plan, 31% highlights the existence of ignorant and 11.7% service points that did not have the opportunity or did not receive an offer to purchase.
In the same poll, 91.3% of consumers who had not were asked if they would have a plan for your pet if the product were approximately R $80. In this issue, 30.2% pointed out that Yes and 32.8 percent can't.
Among the retailers with higher cost-perceived benefit are the Pet Camp, who took first place, followed by the Cobasi, Petlove, Carrefour, Assai and Petz. Among the stores with greater brand strength are Cobasi, followed by Petz, Petlove, Atacadão, Walmart and Extra hypermarkets.