Pets at Home delivers best shopper experience regardless of store size

Mark Wilkinson, head of space planning at Pets at Home, revealed how the initiative had helped the business deliver the best customer experience across all stores, regardless of size.

With 452 stores, Pets at Home is the UK’s largest pet care retailer with stores now ranging in size from 3,500sq ft to 18,000sq ft. However, a growing portfolio of potential pet care products coupled with a drive for new added value services in-store, including vets and dog grooming, demanded a fresh approach. “We needed to do something different – our inventory investment was increasing but stock turn was decreasing and space for the fastest selling SKUs was being challenged. Replenishment was also becoming more challenging and there was more chance of a poor customer experience due to an empty shelf,” said Wilkinson.

According to Wilkinson, 25% of Pets at Home’s lines were delivering very little return. “In every area of the business we had a tail and we were putting too many SKUs into the mix,” he said.

The retailer also recognised that localisation had a role to play in the product offer. Urban stores, for instance, had fewer dog customers but more customers with cats. In rural locations, meanwhile, “small furries” were less prevalent while aquatics were popular in areas of ethnic diversity. 

“We could therefore optimise each store to its own customer base,” Wilkinson told delegates.

In tandem with Symphony RetailAI, Pets at Home began looking at the macro space within its own business. It optimised categories and prepared planograms for a test store and then compared the findings with Symphony RetailAI. 

In a scenario where Pets at Home took 20% of the space out of the store to introduce vets and dog grooming, it found the move cost 0.49% in sales, took six man days to compute and for just three scenarios. Symphony RetailAI’s analysis delivered a 2.49% increase in sales, took one man day to compute and covered 20 different scenarios.

If the existing space was maintained, Pets at Home found it could achieve a 2.5% uplift in sales but Symphony found a 12.15% growth opportunity.

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