"We will open 100 stores by 2010"

Pet's Place is the speciality retail franchise model of the Ijsvogel Group, based in Holland. The company already operates around 190 pet stores in Holland, with a total retail area of 37 000 m². General manager Ard Malenstein received the "PET Retailer of the Year" award for this operation at the 2006 International Pet Conference in Frankfurt/Main.Pet's Place Espana was formed by Pet's Place Holland (Ijsvogel Group) and a group of Spanish investors, with each party owning 50 per cent. Its mission is to lead the way in transforming the speciality pet sector in Spain, which takes roughly half of the € 500 that each pet owner there spends on average per year on pets. The preferred locations for the company's stores, which have an average retail area of 150 to 200 m², are city centre sites and shopping malls. Seven more stores were opened in the last three months of 2007: three in Madrid and one each in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Palma de Mallorca, Seville and Malaga. Another 25 to 30 shops are expected to follow in the next 15 months.
Out of the normThe Spanish Pet's Place stores are totally different to the normal image of a Spanish pet store hitherto. The most striking feature is that no puppies or kittens are offered for sale. Instead, a balanced range of food and non-food items is marketed. "Most Spanish pet stores still achieve the majority of their sales today with puppies and kittens, plus food. Accessory products are normally only available in a limited quantity and range," says José Ramón Fernandez. The situation at Pet's Place is entirely different: the branches stock an extensive range of accessories, many of which the Spanish customers had never come across before, and these take up the same retail area as food products. The results appear to endorse the concept: accessories accounted for around 45 per cent of sales in the first three branches in Barcelona, while premium foods accounted for 50 per cent and small mammals, birds and fish for the remaining five per cent. "We offer a new concept of a shop specializing in products for pets, where owners can choose from a wide assortment of food, accessories, toys, hygiene products etc," José Ramón Fernandez continues. "The Pet's Place formula is based on three key elements: the shops, the products and a highly personalized service."At the heart of the range are the products of the Dutch parent company, such as its own "Adori" accessories brand or "Twinky" treats. All branded products are dispatched from…