Unveiling the Entire Pet Industry Chain: How to Make the World of Our Furry Kids Better?
Bengal leopard cat bred in the cattery
Nowadays, pets have become an emotional sustenance for more and more people in a high-pressure life. According to the data of the "2023 White Paper on Trends and Insights in the Chinese Pet Industry", the number of families raising cats and dogs in China is about to exceed 87 million.
Behind the certain rapid growth, there are also various specific and subtle puzzles hidden, such as how to avoid non-formal breeding sources? How to choose pet food for different growth stages? How to understand the role of pet hospitals... These problems not only trouble pet owners, but also pose challenges to operators in the industry ecosystem.
The companionship of pets makes the human world better, but can the world of furry children be better? Recently, 36Kr conducted an in-depth exploration of the pet industry, hoping to answer the above questions while seeing those who sincerely contribute and the forces that drive the industry towards a better future.
01
When "Rejecting Tricks" Breeders Are Seen
"A Bao Jiang's Cat Private House" in Baoshan District, Shanghai, is currently the only breeding cattery in China where one of the breeding cats has won 5 TICA (The International Cat Association) World Championships.
This boutique family-style cattery only breeds the single breed of Bengal leopard cats. The breeder behind it, Jeff, is the first Chinese to enter the TICA Board of Directors and currently serves as the Asia-Pacific Chairman of the association.
The breeding concept of "A Bao Jiang" can be traced and understood from Jeff's entry experience. Jeff is the first Chinese in the TICA association to take cats to the United States for competitions, and in the first competition, he won the championship of all breeds. The nearly 10-year-old breeding cat "A Bao" is the cat with which he first won the world championship and is also the origin of the name "A Bao Jiang". The competition background has made Jeff pay more attention to the health of cats.
The super breeding male cat "A Bao Jiang" in the cattery
For most people, "cat competitions" are a strange and magical thing, and there are many misunderstandings around it. Jeff said that although it is similar to a beauty pageant, the main principle of the competition is not "who is more beautiful", but to align the pet contestants with the standards of the corresponding breed - "Many high-quality breeders will pursue competitions to verify whether their breeding concepts are healthy and whether they are adversely affected by the market's aesthetic concepts."
Today, in the development of the pet industry, many breeds of dogs and cats are increasingly influenced by human aesthetics in the process of popularization. Scottish Fold cats, Munchkin cats, and German Shepherd dogs with curved hind legs are examples, and such "cuteness" and "beauty" are often contrary to health. Therefore, the more professional awards a breeding cattery wins, the more it can prove that its breeding concept is healthy and sustainable.
Following the professional direction, "A Bao Jiang" regards health as the starting point of breeding. This involves several strict but difficult-to-popularize detailed principles, such as more refined stage-by-stage feeding, not advocating cage breeding, zoned feeding, controlling the annual breeding frequency of each breeding cat to 1 - 1.5 times, and conducting a complete set of genetic testing for cats.
Take zoning as an example, Jeff said that breeding cats, sick cats, and cats just brought back to the breeding cattery all need a period of isolation. "If the concept of isolation is not emphasized, the breeding male cats may fight, or sick cats may spread the pathogen."
In terms of feeding methods, more scientific methods are needed for the safety and stability of food selection, the management of feeding amounts at different stages, and the nutritional management during special periods such as pregnancy or delivery. An industry insider told 36Kr, "Just like humans need to take folic acid during pregnancy, breeding female cats also need some main food with specific formulas."
Royal's Precise Nutrition Solution for the Breeding and Young Pet Period
Breeding is the beginning stage of a pet's life and the most important period for a pet's health. However, refinement means more effort and higher costs. In the commercialized pet world, not all stores are as dedicated as "A Bao Jiang", and more unregulated catteries with uneven quality are not only difficult to identify but also lead to a chaotic market where "bad money drives out good money".
On social platforms, posts about "Weekly Cats", "Weekly Dogs", and "Backyard Cats" are everywhere. Behind such pets with genetic defects and shorter lifespans, it reflects the gray chaos in the breeding process - intensive cage breeding, closed spaces, and non-stop breeding... all violating the nature of pets. Jeff believes, "The purpose of pets is to bring us happiness and companionship. If a pet feels scared when seeing its owner, then the meaning of companionship is lost."
Generally speaking, after pet owners encounter "Backyard Cats", they are more powerless and confused. For the quality of pet life and the development of the industry, can professional breeding catteries and "conscientious" breeders be seen in a clearer way?
The answer is gradually becoming affirmative. Part of the reason is that in the process of building the industry ecosystem and selecting partners, leading brands are paying more attention to the professionalism of breeders.
In 2019, Royal China began to launch the "PROactive Breeding Pioneer" project. Focusing on the three dimensions of "optimizing the breeding cattery environment, popularizing professional breeding knowledge, and providing precise nutrition solutions", it conducts the "Breeding Pioneer" certification for high-quality breeding catteries, and further enhances the professional ability of the certified through multiple measures such as knowledge popularization, precise nutrition empowerment, and building an exchange platform.
According to 36Kr, the certification footprint of this project has successfully covered more than 100 cities and benefited more than 900 breeding catteries, and "A Bao Jiang" has also obtained this certification. In addition, Jeff said that some pet associations, including TICA, are also continuously promoting the legislation of small animals. "The concepts of scientific pet ownership, civilized pet ownership, and healthy pet ownership should be more popularized and supervised."
02
What Does a Pet Store That Jumps Out of "Involution" Look Like?
Besides breeding, pet stores are the places that connect more pets and people, and are also an important link between pet brands and consumers.
Most conventional pet stores are centered around the combination of retail of food and supplies, pet services, and other business forms. However, with the online trend of retail and the homogeneity and low threshold of various grooming services, a large number of disorderly competitions are taking place, and pet stores are experiencing a "store closure wave".
At the same time, the macro data shows a definite positive trend - The "2023 - 2024 China Pet Industry White Paper (Consumer Report)" estimates that the scale of the Chinese pet market will exceed 350 billion yuan in 2026 (only 39.2 billion yuan in 2017), with a rapid growth.
In an environment where opportunities and challenges coexist, there are always excellent players who can find solutions. "Super Bird Bureau", which has opened flagship stores in Wuhan, Fuzhou, Shanghai, Changsha and other places, is a typical representative.
Recently, the "Super Bird Bureau Pet Palace" opened by Super Bird Bureau in Bailian Youcheng, Shanghai, covers an area of 8,000 square meters. In the live animal area, the exclusive spaces for various pet species such as cats, dogs, and parrots are spacious and bright; in addition, there are also professional grooming areas, pet cafes, cat interaction areas, and outdoor pet parks.
Super Bird Bureau Pet Palace
When talking about the uniqueness of this store, Li Zhixin, the offline operation manager of Super Bird Bureau, said: First, the business form is more complete; second, Super Bird Bureau is more refined and consistent in the breeding and care of small animals, which is different from most small pet stores. "Unlike ordinary small pet stores, the pet feeding standards after our store closes at night are the same as those displayed in the front during the day"; the third is service. Young pet owners have higher and higher requirements for the professionalism of the service.
In the pet service business form, "grooming and beauty" is the most conventional and basic, but it also best reflects the professionalism. On the one hand, most pet owners in China still belong to the "first generation of pet owners" and are not familiar with maintenance knowledge. On the other hand, "Bathing small animals is different from bathing humans. They may resist some behaviors such as having their ears and nails trimmed by strangers."
Li Zhixin told 36Kr that the improvement of the store's professionalism is also closely related to the help of partners. He gave an example that Royal will provide the store with multiple training services, telling the store's groomers what pre-checks they can do before bathing pets. "We have an electronic pre-check list to record the eye, ear, mouth, and nose conditions of the pet, and finally generate a report to the pet owner. Problems such as sensitive areas, red spots on the skin, excessive obesity, and photos before and after grooming will be reflected."
Besides services, commodity retail, which accounts for a relatively large proportion in sales, is a business form that pet stores compete for but mostly find it difficult to master. Especially under the impact of online channels, setting up a large area of pet food and supplies display shelves brings only minimal benefits.
In response, the solution of Super Bird Bureau is to "create differentiation". In the retail area of the store, you will see an entire shelf used to display Royal's pet food products. "Because it has many subdivided products, from young pets to adult pets, from small dogs, medium dogs, and large dogs to different breeds of cats, there are subdivided product lines."
Royal's Precise Nutrition Solution Covering the Entire Lifecycle of Dogs and Cats
Li Zhixin said that the store usually has its own logic and standards for product selection, and the most important principle is to be able to meet and cooperate with the various refined needs of consumers, which coincides with the "Precise Nutrition" concept that Royal has always advocated.
A detail is that for cooperative stores like Super Bird Bureau, Royal will provide young pet food to the cooperative stores, and after the pet owner buys a cat or dog and takes it home, products such as milk cakes and food for the transition period, as well as pet insurance and pet care manuals, will be placed in the corresponding gift box to avoid the stress of the pet in the new environment with familiar products.
At the store operation level, Royal will also assist the store in category planning and display optimization, regularly hold nutrition training salons, and share professional pet nutrition knowledge, to help the store improve its professionalism and service level in a mutually beneficial way.
With the close cooperation with leading brands, the product differentiation and service specialization of Super Bird Bureau are increasingly prominent. Many users commented on review platforms and social platforms, "From dogs and cats to reptile pets, they are all very cute. The decoration is bright, and the things sold are very complete. The staff who bathe the cats are very patient and will inform the owner of the various conditions of the cats in advance."
All these are also reflected in the business operation. Super Bird Bureau has achieved remarkable results - In the initial stage of opening, the daily passenger flow of the "Super Bird Bureau Pet Palace" is more than 5,000 people, and the sales in half a month have exceeded 400,000 yuan. In other more mature stores of the brand or during the peak sales season, the monthly sales of a single store can reach 700,000 to 800,000 yuan.
Li Zhixin believes that for pet stores, the interactive business form is an important source of initial traffic, but as the store operation becomes more mature, the growth of the grooming service and commodity retail business forms will become faster and faster. "The former relies more on novelty, while the latter is a process of customer accumulation. Only when the number of customers and the positive feedback are getting higher and higher can the sales growth trend be driven."
Professional services and more differentiated products, these fundamental and simple capabilities may be the best way for pet stores to counter involution.
03
The Indispensable Pet Hospital That Needs to Be Reunderstood
AVC Anjia Pet Hospital on Xietu Road in Shanghai has been open for 8 years, and 50% of its customers are foreign consumers. Before many guests leave Shanghai, they will bring their pets to AVC to take pictures with the doctors and express their gratitude.
AVC Anjia Pet Hospital
The founder of this hospital, Lin Xiujia Grace, is the only Asian member of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) Nutrition Committee and one of the three Chinese Veterinary Association Nutrition Specialized Judges in Shanghai.
"AVC is a hospital, but in fact, it is more of a trust and sustenance in the form of a family." For Grace, a pet doctor is not just a role of treating diseases. The concept that AVC has always adhered to is "preventing problems from occurring". They will divide pets into different stages such as the juvenile stage, the prime stage, and the geriatric stage, and help pet owners complete the health management of the entire life cycle together.