Czech Republic

Year-on-year

Data of GfK suggest that cat-owning households upped their expenses by about 7% last year, spending on average 74 crowns (€2.70 – $2.98) per transaction. Pet food expenses of households which own dogs or other animals, on the other hand, followed a downward trend. 

There have been no changes in year-on-year expenses on pet grooming. For this category, the most important shopping places are hypermarkets and specialised pet supply stores. Households do nearly half of the above mentioned spending there.

The said seven billion crowns (€259 million – $285 million) do not include expenses for pet supplies such as toys or beds. The data has been taken from a market research conducted as a GfK Consumer Panel. Over half of Czech households buy commercially produced pet food.

Keep expenses in check

Over a third of pet owners feel they are spending a lot on their pets; just over 40% think that whilst they do spend some money on their animals, the sums are not excessive. Almost a fifth of the owners say they strive to keep their spending on pets at reasonable levels.

The average spending on pet care per household in the Czech Republic amounts to about two thousand crowns (€74 – $82). There are signs of bigger efforts to keep expenses in check; this trend, along with the increasing share of purchases of goods on promotion or discount, translates into a lower average spending per transaction. Goods on promotion or discount account for almost 40% of Czech households’ spending on this category. In the case of cat food, private brands are responsible for up to a third of the expenses.

Segmentation

Households with children spend significantly less on their pets than childless households do (on average per customer). The difference is especially profound with cat food, where Czech childless households spend on average almost twice as much as their counterparts with children. 

In Slovakia, on the other hand, this difference becomes more evident with dog food, on which childless households spend on average 40% more than households with children. For a dog, the overwhelming majority of Czech households won’t spend more than 2,500 crowns (€92 – $102) per month; however, much higher sums are not an exception, either. 

More than half of Czech dog owners living in cities spend 1,250 (€46 – $51) or less a month on their pet. This includes all costs. The typical monthly sum Czechs spend on dog food does not exceed 750 crowns (€28 – $31). In a survey conducted by Perfect Crowd, three fifths of Czech dog owners said they buy most of their dog food online.

Whilst the total costs are naturally higher in the case of big breeds, owners tend to spend more also on dogs with pedigree papers, where the price of the dog is higher than in the case of mongrels or dogs without the paperwork.