Amazon marches on

Pet owners are shopping increasingly in online shops, especially at mega-retailer Amazon. According to Pet Product News, pet products are one of the fastest-growing online retail categories, with the number of pet owners shopping online rising by 45 per cent in the last two years. 
From October 2016 to September 2017, Amazon's sales in the pet product category amounted to over 2.2 bn US dollars. The overall pet product group was dominated by pet food, which accounted for a sizeable 44 per cent of all sales in the product group during this period. The pet food segment is also exhibiting rapid growth, expanding by 47 per cent within a year. The food category is so large that the dry food segment alone is bigger than all the other categories in the pet products group.

Pet food is essential for life - in other words, pets always need food. It is therefore often sold in large quantities at favourable prices. For those living in cities in particular, who may not have a car, a food delivery service such as that offered by Amazon with its Subscribe & Save programme is interesting and useful. The necessary pet food is delivered straight to the door at regular intervals, saving on shopping trips to bricks-and-mortar stores. A similar phenomenon can be observed in the case of cat litter: litter & odour was the second-fastest-growing category in the USA last year, driven chiefly by cat litter with an increase of 56 per cent. This makes sense, as like pet food, cat litter is always needed and is mostly also difficult to transport.
Since more and more dogs are city dwellers, the demand for habitat & supplies is also on the rise. This category is now even in second place directly after pet food. The third leading category is health care. In these three top-categories alone, Amazon recorded sales of 1.6 bn US dollars within a year. And interactive toys are not the sole preserve of people nowadays; pets too have to stay abreast of the latest technological developments. Electronic and interactive pet products constituted the fastest-growing sub-category at Amazon in the last twelve months, more than doubling in popularity. However, pet health has become an important branch of the industry, both due to the growing awareness of pet health needs and the increasing urbanisation of pets.