PETIN | China

Changing pet market

Due to the one child policy, from the past, a pet, especially a dog, is the replacement for another child. Therefore, a pet plays an important factor in the relationship with humans, it is seen and experienced as a human. PETIN experienced that in their shops. To satisfy the consumer needs they offer beside the regular pet products, pet grooming, pet boarding, and of course livestock via the living campus.

In this concept they have an integrated strategy with the brick and mortar shops and the online channel. In the brick and mortar they offer high quality products which are less price sensitive. To avoid competition they offer in the online shop more the sensitive prices products.

Consumer loyalty

To attract the consumer to the shop they organize in-shop activities, such as free testing, interactive product animation to educate the customers. That brings added value to their clients and keeps them away of a low price strategy.

The Chinese pet market is expected to surge by 43% to 13.5 billion Yuan (€1.85 billion) over the next five years. With that China will become the third largest pet market in the world. In this growing market mainly dogs are very popular. To serve this growing market in the best way possible PETIN does have, beside their shops, also shop-in-shop stores in for instance big hyper supermarkets.

The grooming card mechanism is also unique in their market. For only €1,40 per day (10 Yuan) the consumer buys a card to get the professional grooming service. These type of professional services is feeding the client loyalty and a higher visiting frequency of our shops. This attractive growth is for PETIN the challenge to be focused on the changing consumer requirements and the right business models.

Different business models

To be at close to the consumer they set up a wide network of shop-in-shop stores at several locations with the aim to generate as much as possible traffic and a maximum exposure of product and services. Inside this concept they learned that the high spenders are the consumers who are shopping by car. These consumers are using the extra services such as grooming, by dropping their pets and go shopping themselves. After that they take back their pets and consumed products when they back to home. Inside this shop in the shop model they have the model of: ‘Business tycoon estatespeculators+’, a new commercial real estate development model. In this long term strategic model they work closely with partners such as Carrefour, Auchan, IKEA, Capital land, etc. with them they enroll pet shop in the shop concepts all over the country. Due to this cooperation PETIN has been the most preferred pet shop brand in the market.

Social media

The Chinese consumer is internet driven and to adopt themselves to the changing Chinese pet market PETIN is launching apps and Wechat in order to be as close to the network perception and needs as of the consumer as well of their social perception and service value. Wechat is in China the equivalent of WhatsApp. The apps and other online services are delivering options for online booking, payments, consultation, etc. The gathered Big data is becoming more and more important for the right market position and a precise targeting of the consumer.

Future development

PETIN today has eleven stores and one training center in Shanghai and Zhejiang province. They spend ten years to set industry standards, develop the concept and to train their staff. Their aim is to have twenty more stores 2016, and another hundred stores in 2017.