Pet health gaining popularity on Amazon

Pet health gaining popularity on Amazon

What do the e-commerce giant’s sales figures for the first half of this year tell us about the pet health segment in the US? We take a close look at the data.

From January to June 2023, Amazon sold $778 million (€710M) worth of pet health products for dogs, cats, horses, small animals, fish, reptiles and amphibians in the US. This represents an increase of 27.9%, continuing the upward trend of the past 2 years.

To put this in context, Amazon’s full-year sales of pet health products jumped from $992.2 million (€904.9M) in 2021 to $1.28 billion (€1.17B) in 2022, according to data from Similarweb Shopper Intelligence.

Solid rise in month-on-month sales

From June 2020 to February 2021, Amazon’s average monthly revenue from the pet health segment was $80 million (€73M), with February 2021 being the month with the lowest sales at $67.53 million (€61.59M).

The platform saw solid month-on-month growth from March 2021 onwards, reaching over $100 million (€91.2M) in March 2022.

This trend has continued, with the latest figures showing that June 2023 was the best month yet for the e-commerce platform, generating close to $150 million (€137M) in revenue from the total pet health segment.

Cats

Revenue from cat health products was up 26% in the first half of 2023, growing from $24 million (€22M) to $29 million (€26.5M). In volume terms, the units sold increased by 23% to nearly 27 million items.

FELIWAY came out as the top pet health brand for cats on Amazon in June 2023 with more than 148,500 units sold – a 42% increase against the same month of 2022. Its revenue jumped 62% to $4.8 million (€4.4M).

Vet’s Best was the second most popular brand with 81,450 units sold (+1,042%) and a revenue of $844,000 (€770,000), up 979%. Zymox (46,500 units sold), DENTAL FRESH (42,300 units sold) and Arm & Hammer (41,700 units sold) completed the top 5 cat health brands in June 2023.

Amazon's sales in total pet health

Dogs

Amazon’s revenue from dog health products was up 27% to $115.42 million (€105.26M) in the first half of the year, while unit sales were up 21%. Zesty Paws sold the highest number of units (314,700) in June, 11% more than in the same month in 2022. Its revenue also increased by 15% to $9.5 million (€8.7M). The second most successful brand in June 2023 was Nutramax Laboratories, which generated $9.1 million (€8.3M) in revenue (+27%), despite its number of units sold remaining unchanged at nearly 214,200.

In third place, NaturVet sold more than 164,000 units. Purina, a Nestlé brand, sold fewer units (115,500) but achieved the highest performance increase in the category. In fact, the data shows that both its revenue and unit sales have climbed steadily over the past year.

Reptiles and amphibians

This category showed the greatest revenue gain (36%) of the total pet health segment in the first 6 months of 2023. In January, it saw the biggest revenue so far with 639,500 units sold, although this dropped to 495,000 units in June.

According to the figures for June, the most popular brand on Amazon by sales is Fluker’s with 15,000 units sold, although this is a decrease of 20% in a year. Other brands such as Oxbox (-54%) and Zilla (-41%) also lost both in sales and revenue.

However, the second most popular brand, Zoo Med, achieved the most impressive year-on-year gains, with an 84% increase in units sold and a 103% rise in revenue to $128,000 (€117,000).

top pet health brands amazon

Small animals and fish

Unit sales were flat or slightly down in June for the categories of small animals and fish health products. Nevertheless, the revenue increased by 22% for small animals and by 13.5% for fish. Over the past 3 years (June 2020–June 2023), March 2023 was the biggest month in revenue terms for small animals ($258,400 / €235,700). In the same period, May 2023 was the strongest month for fish health products, with a revenue of $310,000 (€283,000). This illustrates that there is clearly momentum for both of these categories on Amazon.