Hiya, I've been thinking about this a lot recently and wanted to hear some opinions regarding pet stores particularly in the US but it also applies to pet stores in other countries as well! Please remember to be kind and that this is simply a discussion
Cage accessories: Recently I've found myself checking the niteangel website every day waiting for them to restock their acrylic sand bath, and I noticed most of their products are out of stock, including the adequately sized enclosures. This got me thinking, why don't pet stores attempt to adopt a more ethical approach to their small pets, in order to bring in more money? When I go to my local petco, most of their small pet products are never bought and the same ones stay on the shelf for months, never being touched. the products that do frequently get restocked are the ones known to be good products such as grapevine wood, cork logs, and bendy bridges. If pet stores wanted to draw in small pet lovers, they should start selling natural, high quality items such as the ones for reptiles. These items cost more money to produce than plastic but people seem to eat them up, and would pay a higher price for quality rather than quantity.
WHEELS!!;
don't even get me started. The wheels they sell at most pet stores are noisy, cheap, and break constantly. People would pay more money for higher quality wheels that won't keep them up at night, this has been proven by the sheer amount of exotic nutrition silent runners I see on a daily basis. Better wheels cost more money and people would be willing to pay more money if it meant they weren't getting overpriced plastic and instead got a reliable, quality wheel that stays silent. Easy marketing.
Enclosures;
This is just an idea, but if pet stores stopped selling overpriced, low quality, plastic wire crittertrails, and instead had a larger selection of aquariums and wooden enclosures (which obviously are much more expensive) they could make bank off of selling 200$ quality enclosures. Also a great idea would be for pet stores to sell large bins instead of crittertrails! they can order a huge stock of large plastic bins for very cheap and sell them for way more money than they buy them for. they'll be cheaper than the crittertrails but I would think they would be bought much more often because people would pick them up at the pet store instead of walmart or target.
Pandering to your audience;
This is one of the number one marketing strategies yet pet stores seem to be lacking this area of business instead of taking advantage of it. Pandering to the small pet community by selling a larger variety of high quality, adequate options would draw in the crowd they want and increase sales. The more people that say good things about their products, the more exposure they get and therefore they make more sales. Pet stores could adopt a more ethical approach and regain the respect of the small pet community, effectively bringing in an entire new group of customers who are willing to buy their products and spend good money on these better quality items.
Creating hype and marketing the new products;
Now that pet stores have adopted a plan to sell higher quality goods, they need a plan to market these goods. A very obvious first step would be to add these new products into their enclosures with the animals they sell. By showing off these cool natural looking enclosures, people would get more excited and be more interested in owning these animals because there's so many cool items to buy them! Leading by example is crucial when people rely so heavily on pet stores to properly inform them and I believe that improving the conditions these animals are living in would be extremely successful in causing people to buy more items, and bigger cages for more money because they see that the pet store provides them with these products. Another strategy that I see being used for cat and dog products is pushing that ethical and natural approach, this should definitely be expanded to small pets as well. Creating this idea of safe, natural products makes people more comfortable with what they're buying and creates a want for these products.
Summary;
All in all, creating a demand for more products that cost more money would cause pet stores to increase profits. By marketing bigger enclosures that can fit lots of products that they sell right there at the pet store, they would effectively sell more of these products. By showcasing the idea of these "cool and natural" enclosures, hype for the products would increase significantly and would get pet stores more on board with their targeted audience. Instead of marketing them as children's pets, marketing them as pets for everybody would vastly increase their target audience that wants to buy these animals and products. Just some food for thought, tell me what you guys think!
marketing strategies and how pet stores could expand profits by being more ethical
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