Barriers to entry are low in many sectors of the dog-related industry. Which means that there are many small businesses marketing products and services for dogs and other pets. Many dog product entrepreneurs are fueled by their passion to solve a problem they experienced with their own pets which inspired them to launch their business. They start with an idea, develop a product or service and then start selling with limited resources for marketing support, let alone market research and analysis.
Enter John Gibbons, the Pet Business Professor. John maintains a website where he publishes detailed analyses of public data about pet spending, discusses industry trends, and offers guidance on how to get the most out of pet industry trade shows. This information can help pet businesses of all sizes, but I think should be of particular interest to small companies without the resources to dig into all this data themselves. I suspect even many mid-size to large businesses are not doing this type of in-depth analysis of data that is publicly available, but not user-friendly in its original form.
You can subscribe to The Pet Business Professor blog via email to get updates when a new article is published. The industry deep dives don’t come out very often, but they contain a treasure trove of information. In the weeks leading up to major industry trade shows, like Global Pet Expo and SuperZoo, the Pet Professor will publish maps and attendance strategy guides to help you map out a plan of attack to get the most out of these vast displays from pet product purveyors.
I recommend that everyone in the dog marketing space visit The Pet Business Professor website, you’re certain to learn something of value.
John
I am writing a report to show the need for more veterinary services for those lacking discretionary income, especially those living in inner cities. Common statements are: If they can’t afford them they shouldn’t have them (but they do have them). A nonprofit clinic would take away business from for profit vet clinics, and any stats on how many pets are euthanized because of affordability. Can you help with any data?
Hi Bob, It looks like you’re trying to reach the actual Pet Business Professor, and I only wrote a blog post about him. His website is https://www.petbusinessprofessor.com/ I know that euthanasia statistics are really tricky and somewhat political, so they are probably going to be hard to find, I think he mostly works with Census data, but obviously he has good data chops and may know of some sources. My hunch is the best you’ll find is something from individual shelters or shelter networks who keep records about why animals are surrendered. I think you must be searching pretty deep to land on my blog, so you may have found that already. Jean Donaldson, who is a well known dog behavior writer who works for I believe it’s one of the SPCAs in California, might be a good person to look up to see if she’s aware of anything published on this topic. I’m also wondering if any of the “pop up vets” in our area VIP Petcare is one that hosts walk in clinics at pet stores might have information on this. I’m thinking it might be in background or investor statements on their websites since they are addressing a similar, if more affluent, population than you are targeting.. I don’t know if you saw the movie “Mine” about animals rescued during Hurricane Katrina and rehomed out of the area with really no attempt to find their owners. One of the people who refused to return the dog they adopted said they owners didn’t deserve her, one of the reasons being she was heartworm positive and the other IMO was they weren’t willing to leave a human family member behind so they could get the dog in the car when they left. Heartbreaking, dogs do so much good for people it’s wrong to say anyone that can’t take care of dogs exactly the way “I” would shouldn’t have a dog. It’s an attitude that can quickly be taken to absurd extremes.