Expansion in the right proportions

The French pet sector differs from that of other countries in many respects. The pet food market is dominated by large food chains such as Carrefour, Casino and Auchan; the specialised trade is likewise dominated by major players in the garden sector, such as Truffaut, Jardiland and Botanic and rural trading cooperatives like Gamm Vert. The market share of the classic pet product trade tends to be small.
The range of premium brands is extensive.
City-Zoo is an exception in this power structure. Founded ten years ago by a vet, Matthieu Bonnier, the company has fought to secure its place in the hotly contested French market. All nine stores have a sales area of between 1 000 and 1 800 m², stock a full range including live animals and are favourably located from the transport viewpoint in locations with a high volume of visitors. The in-house Enterprise Resource Planning System, or ERP for short, enables the company to plan its stores centrally with regard to the range, ordering and invoicing and administration. On the basis of the data acquired through ERP, City-Zoo is constantly adapting its system to current requirements. The system also reduces the workload of the staff, leaving them more time to devote to their actual job of giving specialist advice to customers.
Animals are kept in spacious selling compounds.
The company has attracted attention in recent months with three new store openings in Grenoble (1 700 m²), Annemasse (1 300 m²) and Marseille (1 500 m²). A new store is set to appear in Lille in northern France also, although City-Zoo does not intend to rush headlong into expansion; it aims instead to adopt a planned, systematic growth strategy. Three investors hold an interest in the company: the big bank BNP Paribas, Avenir Entreprise and the joint stock company Spef. To increase the pace of expansion, City-Zoo is looking to form an alliance with another trading company, possibly even a foreign firm.
Priority is given to the dog and cat sections. These include a large range of accessories.
In organising his operating business, Matthieu Bonnier looks less to classic pet product dealers and more to the food retailing business. The chief maxim is to achieve maximum profitability in the markets. Taking the available data as a basis, the sections handling dog, cat and rodent products have been markedly enlarged in recent months, while the bird and aquatics departments have been scaled down. Further changes are expected in the live animal sphere too. The…