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Product Positioning in the Pet Care Market
The pet care market is bursting with opportunities for passionate, knowledgeable businesspeople to offer a range of products. The chance to make your mark in this thriving industry is not one to take lightly, though. For a business to be established on firm foundations, initial research needs to take place and it needs to be thorough. Product positioning is a process that needs to be completed thoroughly and carefully so that the potential business owner understands where the opportunities lie, where the market might already be saturated and where ideas may need to be considered in a little more detail. Product positioning will look for a gap in pet care product offerings, such as a lack of raw dog food, a particular type of grooming kit not being available in the UK, or pet vitamins that might be missing from the shelves in pet stores. Once the general pet care industry landscape has been explored, it’s time to move forward with business ideas.
Wholesalers and Pet Product Suppliers – Finding Value for Money
Wholesale pet supplies are better value for money, and can be bought in bulk by pet-related businesses to keep costs down. For this reason, businesses such as pet shops, specialist pet and animal retailers, and others within the pet industry, will buy in products from pet accessories wholesalers. These accessories could be anything, from horse care products, to dog toys, to the latest fish tank cleaning kits. Whatever your customers want to buy, you will be able to find from specialist pet accessory wholesalers – and for much better prices too.
When you run a business, it is all about finding value for money. This works in two ways because you will need to find value for money when buying in products and accessories from your own suppliers, and you will need to be able to provide value for money for your own customers too. The two go hand in hand of course – lower cost, high quality accessories can be sold for a more reasonable price than those you have to pay a lot for yourself, so you can keep your customers happy and win more business for yourself as well in the process. The pet industry has a lot of opportunity as an enormous amount of people now have pets in the UK, especially over recent months where more people are working from home and have decided the time is right to get a cat, dog, rabbit, guinea pig or another type of furry friend. This also means it is highly competitive though, so anybody hoping to do well for themselves as a pet-related business will need to have a USP. One of the main USPs is quality, and another is low costs. If you can find a balance between the two, then you could have found a very profitable business model for yourself.
Whilst it is obviously important to find value when shopping with pet wholesalers, it is also very important to find quality as well. Value implies that a product serves its purpose and does everything that it needs to as a pet accessory, rather than just being cheap and breaking quickly. It is always better to think long term and pick products that will be better value for money due to their hardiness and robustness, rather than going for cheap options – these could even be dangerous for pets.
When working with new wholesalers to buy pet care accessories for your business, you will need to:
- Verify the quality of their products. Make sure they meet industry standards and that the products they are supplying are safe, legal and high quality. These are the kinds of products that you will want to have associated with your business.
- Check delivery and stock details. Make sure they will be able to meet the levels of demand that you anticipate and that if products sell very well in your pet shop, you can get more stock quickly.
- Iron out the contract details. Make sure you know all obligations you have to each other and have signed a contract.
Buying a Pet from a Pet Shop
Pet shops have lots of animals you can buy, though some might be better to buy from a breeder, like cats and dogs. If you are going to get any kind of pet from a pet shop, it is better that you do your research first, both into the pet and into the pet shop. You want to make sure that you will be getting a healthy animal that will be a good companion for you.
As well as looking into the pet shop and ensuring it meets all necessary standards, you must also check out the kinds of pets that you are considering. Whether you want a hamster, budgie, parrot, goldfish or rabbit, you need to be able to offer it a good home with you. Check how much care and attention it will need, as well as looking into its diet and behaviour. You will also need to buy a hutch or cage, which can also be bought from a pet shop.
Dog Groomers – How to Succeed in this Career
Dog grooming is fun, rewarding and creative, the perfect combination for pet lovers who want to work with dogs. You can train to become a groomer at any point in your life, as long as you know how to make sure you are setting yourself up to succeed.
First, make sure your qualification or training course is right for you. It might be that you need to work flexibly around an existing job, in which case, choose a part time course. If you can train full time, you will be able to develop quickly and become a dog groomer in no time at all.
Speak to the people who you will be working with to find out what the day to day work is actually like. If you aren’t set on grooming as a career, think about getting some work experience first. Offer to volunteer in a pet grooming environment to get an understanding of it.
Starting a Business Fitting Out Pet Shops
The pet industry is where the money is at an can be incredibly lucrative. For anyone with building and fit out experience, a career fitting out pet shops can be a great career move. It will certainly bring in lots of work and once you get a good reputation, there will be many shop owners wanting your services.
Start off by approaching new pet shops – look out for business yourself and ask around in the building trade. You never know who people will know and they can often point you in the right direction. Secure the job by tendering for it, and showing that your commercial experience will help you.
Once you have some experience, let the results speak for themselves. Show that you know the essential industry skills, like fitting out animal enclosures and shop counters, and make it clear that you understand the industry as a whole. Your passion will show through for you.