Pet Lovers Center: keeping pace in a pandemic
With customers hunkering down during the nationwide lockdown earlier this year, Pet Lovers Center, the leading pet retailer in South East Asia, realised it had to quickly adjust its services to cater to them.
It made its website more useful for customers with a personalisation engine introduced in March last year that tracks customers’ shopping patterns to refine its recommendations.
Among an array of ways to buy pet supplies, people can use the website to identify stores nearest to them carrying the products they want — if they wish to pick up the items in-store. Customers can also call the brand’s delivery hotline or place an online order.
This integrated approach to sales is key to PLC’s goal of becoming an omnichannel company.
“Consumers today want to be able to get their necessities as conveniently as possible. Pet owners are no exception. Being an omnichannel firm is about being totally accessible, both online and offline,” Mr Ng notes.
To expand its online reach, the company is opening stores on virtual marketplaces. It opened a store on Lazada in 2017 and is in talks with Shopee to open a store on its e-commerce platform.
While such initiatives have helped it remain resilient and profitable amid uncertainty, it has not been a solitary journey.
“ESG worked tirelessly to provide us and others in the industry with timely updates, communicate new policy developments, clarify manpower restrictions and other matters, and share our feedback to policymakers,” Mr Ng stresses.
Looking ahead, he adds: “I think we are already the most accessible pet supplies store you can find. We want Pet Lovers Centre to be a household name for everything pets-related.”