US Pet Market Focus: Pet Specialty Channel and Internet Shoppers

Report Overview

In pet industry retailing, things are both changing and staying the same. With the early 2000s bust, the pet industry gave investors one of the most dramatic dot.com failures:  Pets.com of sock puppet fame.  Fast forward two decades, and PetSmart’s June 2019 IPO of Chewy.com proved a spectacular success, leading to the Forbes headline “Don’t Bet Against Pets.”

The pet industry continues to outperform the lion’s share of consumer good markets, and the lions are less changeable than might meet the eye:  Amazon was an investor in Pets.com, and PetSmart acquired Pets.com’s assets. In U.S. Pet Market Focus: Pet Specialty Channel and Internet Shoppers, Packaged Facts projects that the Internet will account for 26% of U.S. pet product sales by 2023, with PetSmart/Chewy and Amazon cornering 78% of this ecommerce.

What's Covered?

Focusing on the new landscape of competition and interplay between brick-and-mortar specialty channels and the Internet, this report focuses on the dog- or cat-owner customer base in the following retail sectors:

• PetSmart and Petco as the nationally established pet superstore chains
• other pet specialty chains and stores, including regional pet chains as well as traditional local/independent pet stores
• the farm supply store channel, particularly Tractor Supply Co.
• the Internet, particularly Chewy and Amazon

The analysis provided in U.S. Pet Market Focus: Pet Specialty Channel and Internet Shoppers covers pet ownership patterns, demographics, and cross-channel shopping. Included are current and forecasted 2023 dollar market sizes and market shares for each of these retail sectors, along with historically trended shopper shares. Coverage of pet owner shopping patterns are set in the context of current trends and future directions for retailing, drawing on Packaged Facts’ U.S. Pet Market Outlook 2019-2020 and overall catalog of pet and veterinary industry market reports.

The shopper data presented in U.S. Pet Market Focus: Pet Specialty Channel and Internet Shoppers draw on two main sources: Simmons Research Fall 2018 booklet-based consumer surveys (with a sample size of nearly 23,000) and Packaged Facts’ online surveys of pet owners (with a sample size of 2,000). This data-rich report contains numerous tables, figures, and images corresponding to these key pet retailing channels and competitors.

With a focus on dog or cat owners, this report covers demographic and cross-shopping patterns for U.S. pet product shoppers in the following retail sectors:

• pet superstore chains
• regional chains and local/independent pet stores
• farm supply stores
• the Internet

The information in this report was gathered from primary and secondary research. This report provides proprietary current and forecasted 2023 dollar market size for each of these retail sectors, along with historically trended shopper shares. Data-rich coverage of pet owner shopping patterns are set in the context of current trends and future directions for retailing, drawing on Packaged Facts’ U.S. Pet Market Outlook 2019-2020 and an overall catalog of pet and veterinary industry market reports.

The shopper data presented draw on two main sources: Simmons Research Fall 2018 booklet-based consumer surveys (with a sample size of nearly 23,000; field dates from October 22, 2017 through November 29, 2018) and Packaged Facts’ online surveys of pet owners (with a sample size of 2,000). In addition, this report contains dozens of numerical tables and graphs, as well as numerous retailing and marketing images across these key pet retailing channels.