Interview with Wojciech Kamiński, Managing Director, Maxi Zoo Polska

Maxi Zoo entered the Polish market in 2012 with Country Manager and Managing Director Wojciech Kamiński overseeing its growth from day one.

He tells PETS International how the company is developing, the challenges it faces and its plans for the future.

Talking about the company’s progress in recent years, he says: “We are now present in most of the agglomerations above 50,000 inhabitants, and we are the only pet business that is providing our customers with a new shopping experience.”

How has the Polish retail landscape changed in the past decade?

When we joined the market in 2012, the typical Polish pet store was around 40 sq m, not well-stocked, a bit chaotic, and you usually paid for the products by weight.

Since then, we have opened big stores where you can find up to 8,000 articles. We sell a curated range of products from economy to super premium, non-food and food.

We started to introduce to the customer the idea that if you want to have a good life for your pet, you have to feed and treat them well.

12 years ago, only 20% of Polish pets were fed with well-prepared or, let’s say, functional food. Now, this has increased to 50%, and in this sense I believe we were the ones who changed that market.

You have opened more than 150 stores in 13 years. What’s next?

In 2024, we opened 27 stores and we will open another 26 locations this year. In the next few years we are planning to open, on average, 20 locations per year.

We believe that the future target for our chain of stores in this market would be growth in the triple-digit range. Of course, it depends on how the market develops.

Is this growth in the number of physical stores also matched by an increase in e-commerce?

Yes. We started our online store in 2019, just before the pandemic. So we were basically in a quite good position when the pandemic broke out, as we had the online option ready.

Since then, of course, online sales have been growing quite significantly. Right now, e-commerce has around 13% of the share of our total sales.

What is your approach to omnichannel?

We want to be ready to meet customer needs and follow the changes in customer behavior. According to a recent report, more than 50% of Polish customers are buying products both offline and online, 31% buy offline only, and 19% only do their purchasing online.

This will obviously change over the years due to demographic changes, because younger people tend to purchase online a bit more than offline. For us, the most important thing is to give our customers a seamless way to switch between offline and online.

For example, we recently launched a click-and-collect option. This benefit gives customers the opportunity to choose the desired product online – via our app or web page – and to pick it up from our store within even 1 day.

Your app recently reached 1 million users…

We launched the app in 2022, and today around 60% of our sales go through our app. It gives customers access to our online store, but it has also other functions.

For example, the click-and-collect service and ‘Little Friends’, which provides advice and support for people who have welcomed a new young pet into their home.

Which are the best performing categories on your shelves?

The biggest category is still food. Just 50% of the pets in Poland are fed with commercially prepared pet food while in Germany, for example, that‘s more than 90%.

Although food holds the largest share, there is still significant room for growth, even within such a fundamental category.

Recently, we’ve seen the most growth in snacks. People want to reward and treat their pets with snacks, in addition to their basic meals. You are also seeing some kind of shift from economy products to slightly higher level products.

There’s noticeable growth in training products. Additionally, certain types of supplements are gaining popularity, as customers have come to understand that their pets also need supplementation, especially when it can support specific health conditions.

Products related to fleas and – particularly – ticks are currently a hot topic, and they’re selling quite well. It is an interesting time for product development and sales in this segment.

What about other categories, such as insect-based or plant-based pet food?

As part of our assortment, we have included some kinds of bio products and even plant-based food. But sales and overall interest in these products is quite minimal.

People are trying, but it’s not something that currently generates much interest among a larger group of our customers at Maxi Zoo.

How much do your customers spend on average?

A Polish customer spends around €270 ($316) to €280 ($328) per year on their pet. If we compare Polish and German customers, the average basket value in Poland is still around 60% of that in Germany.

Compared to Switzerland, Denmark, Italy or France, the difference is even greater. However, we are seeing an increase in average expenditure, driven by an increase in average salaries.

Are you seeing any differences in the performance of the dog vs the cat market?

We are seeing stronger growth in the cat market. It is growing faster due to the fact that, since the pandemic, people want to travel and cats are much more independent companions.

The only part of the dog market that is growing is the small dog segment. In the big dog segment, numbers are declining.

What are the biggest challenges you’re currently facing?

Finding good-quality locations for our expansion is a big challenge. Poland is becoming very expensive and the rents are quite high.

Also, there are not enough suitable spaces available to meet the needs of all the retailers looking to expand. For many years shopping in Poland was based on the shopping malls – there were no high streets.

So, basically, these shopping centers were the only available option, and they continued to be developed for quite a long time.

Over the past couple of years things have started to change because customers are now looking for convenience. People have stopped going to big shopping centers because they don’t want to spend hours there.

The second challenge is related to the Polish labor market. It’s becoming more and more difficult to get new employees on board. That is because our demographic is changing and the unemployment rate is currently very low.

What lies ahead for Maxi Zoo Polska?

We want to be an indisputable market leader in the pet business here in Poland. To make that happen, we’re going to develop our chain of physical stores.

We’re also going to grow our online business so we can provide an omnichannel experience for all our Polish customers.

That’s why we’re investing in additional functionalities such as click-and-collect, and further developing our mobile app. We’re also going to develop a new, different type of store format to give us a chance to expand in city centers.

We want to invest in an urban-style store, with a smaller space and a different kind of assortment.

Our goal is to find solutions for the blind spots within big agglomerations, where our current format cannot be implemented due to a lack of suitable locations.