Website Closers® presents a company that has not only brought in stunning sales numbers but has done so in a very heartwarming way by matching loving families with the perfect new addition, a puppy. This Pet Business has made a name for itself in the phenomenally profitable Pet Vertical, and due to the foundation built and massive web traffic, additional products and services can be offered quite easily.
Pet adoption has become an immensely lucrative operation, bringing this brand a tail-wagging increase in sales volume. Over their 7 years in business, this company has accomplished tremendous success through strong customer service and an unparalleled marketing strategy: adorable puppy photos and a world class customer service response. Leveraging images of the pets they market and sell to loving families on the company’s website, this brand has achieved an enviable 20% repeat order rate in just puppies alone – image how that recurring revenue might increase through the addition of offers like pet insurance, pet supplements, etc.
The sale of puppies and other pets online has become a booming market, boosted in much the same way that the sale of homes online works, where a series of photos can instantly capture the heart of the viewer. This is a massive industry that just keeps expanding. Americans are clearly passionate about their pets and back that up with an impressive amount of money spent on items ranging from pet food to grooming and veterinary services. This brand has understood that from the start and developed a strong reputation for offering healthy top breed puppies to families eager to find a new addition to the family.
The puppy industry is truly a unique one, since puppies provide a much stronger emotional attachment than other products consumers buy that only have a practical, short-term use. In fact, this company was first launched in August 2014 because the family that founded it wanted to help find ways to give more puppies a loving home. Over the past seven years, this business has grown and so has its customer base, as the company’s reputation continues to increase for both excellent customer service and for offering the kind of top breeds that customers are looking for, it is set to only grow in popularity and value.
This isn’t an easy industry to operate in since customers have vastly different expectations when compared to buying common household products. When purchasing a puppy, consumers are likely to be considerably more informed about what they want, and far more demanding about what they expect. Addressing this need directly, this offering provides a multitude of resources to keep the clients informed and to build industry trust.
This company’s success, demonstrated both in terms of profits and high ratings from very satisfied customers, makes it clear how well run this business is and how well positioned it is to continue growing. From the very start, this company made the decision to hold itself to the highest standards when it came to selecting breeders for the puppies they market. The breeders who are connected with them are well known for maintaining the highest possible standards for the puppies in their care.
Equally important is this company’s commitment to providing outstanding customer service to the people who have formed their customer base. They developed a puppy matching service on their website that helps families track down a specific breed. The company went a step further and added an informative and education blog on their website that provides information about puppies and breeds. Both services help drive organic traffic to the website, which has enabled the company to earn 400+ customer contacts a day. Today, 20% of their sales are from repeat customers, and many of them have provided the company with stellar reviews for both the puppy they adopted and the excellent customer service they experienced.
There is a lot of love and passion that has gone into making this business such a great success, but it is also clear that their website is perfectly designed to tug at the heartstrings of consumers to keep them interested. Their very photocentric website includes a look at which puppies are now available to adopt, a video gallery with videos about their breeders, and a series of photos of the puppies that were recently adopted and are now enjoying their new home.
The brand thrives by offering a very wide selection of breeds. This includes Chihuahuas, Chow Chows, French Bulldogs and Boston Terriers, among others. There are typically as many as 120 puppies available at any given time. As part of their service, the company offers information about financing options available to the buyers interested in securing a loan. This combination of photos, customer services, financing options and useful information has worked exceptionally well to keep puppy buyers engaged and coming back to their site.
Not surprisingly, social media has played a key role in boosting this company’s success as well. The brand has a growing social media base on Facebook and Instagram, where the photos they post of the puppies they are selling and the happy customers with their new pets have done a tremendous job of driving engagement and organic traffic to the site.
Their SEO program is just as impactful as their blog is well read and has helped establish their credibility in the pet space. It has also helped expand the company’s email database, which now has more than 60,000 subscribers, a massive number of people for their email marketing campaigns. Lastly, the company has used paid display ads on social media sites through Google Search Network to expand traffic to the site, and effectively used their YouTube channel to post videos about their puppies.
Their rapidly expanding customer base is a key factor for a buyer since that presents unique opportunities to continue growing this already extraordinarily successful eCommerce site. The family started with a base of operations in Chantilly, Virginia before discovering a much larger audience well beyond that location through their eCommerce site. The company has the option of opening new retail locations in strategic places, which would expand their reach even further. Another option would be to make the store available to franchisees.
For this company, which buys new breeds on a weekly basis and stocks up to $250,000 worth of breeds, sales remain steady throughout the year. This is not a business that requires a huge workload: the current owner spends about 5 hours per week running it, mainly by overseeing financials and strategizing for future growth opportunities; however, there is a CEO in place now that runs day to day operations.
This truly is a terrific opportunity for a buyer. Anything related to pets is an evergreen industry that attracts new customers every day, and this company’s immense profits are the clearest example of how well they have connected with their customer base. As long as families and individuals love the idea of adopting a pet, this business will continue to grow, and a buyer has an amazing opportunity to dramatically increase those profits by continuing to focus on the growth of the eCommerce site, by adding new products and services onto their well-trafficked platform, such as pet shipping, pet grooming or providing pet training services. This would additionally open doors for international expansions.
Growth opportunities also exist by increased use of video marketing to drive traffic to the website, expanded email marketing campaigns, and increased use of PPC ads on Google to boost their presence in search results. The bottom line is that across the country, retail sales of pet products and services hit a massive $107 billion in 2020, up 9% over 2019. Families spent $42 billion on pet food in 2020 and $31 billion in veterinary care. Puppies are big business in this country.
