The pet trade in the land of the Vikings

When analysing a country like Norway, it's hard to disregard the wonderful landscape and nature in this Scandinavian land. But focusing purely on the figures sends many economic experts into raptures. For example, Norway tops the Human Develop­ment Index (HDI) of the United Nations, although this country comparison flatters it in many respects, because the index covers not only gross income per capita, but other factors such as length of education and life expectancy. In summary, it is all top-notch in Norway, which also has a strong economy that keeps unemployment down to just over three per cent. 
The conditions are thus optimal for a successful pet supplies trade, which also exists in the land that was once home to the Vikings. Retail growth rates have been steady in recent years, although not reaching dizzying heights with the exception of some segments such as treats. This is confirmed by Svein A. Fosså, secretary general of the Norges Zoohandleres Bransjeforening (NZB), the Norwegian Pet Trade Association. "I believe we are seeing small growth in turnover, but not substantial. The biggest growth continues to be in the shift towards more expensive and/or premium products rather than bigger general turnover. Dog and cat food continues to be the big volume, but I see a growing realisation in the trade that volume doesn't necessarily equal profit."

In contrast to many other countries on the old continent such as Germany, however, Norway doesn't have the same excessive dominance by franchise chains, which carve up the pet supplies market between them and are slowly driving the small independents from the retail landscape. This is due primarily to the fact that the chains that exist in Norway tend to be rather small. On the whole, five largish pet store chains operate in the country. One of these, the Tropehagen chain, was one of the market leaders a year ago in terms of the number of stores, but suffered a big knock-back in 2014. "Tropehagen today has 20 to 25 shops left after 16 franchisers have withdrawn from the chain in the last year," says Svein A. Fosså. The legal situation pertaining to this is still somewhat unclear, according to those familiar with the situation, and the market probably hasn't seen the end of the conflict yet. The companies that withdrew are running independent shops at the moment, some in the same localities and others in new locations. "Tropehagen has apparently restarted new shops in some of the old…