Specialist
Former Head at Ocado Retail Ltd
Agenda
- Demand dynamics in the UK pet care market, including coronavirus impacts
- Key industry and innovation trends including premiumisation, e-commerce development and M&A
- Competitive positioning and the evolution of pure online players
- Mid-term structural growth outlook and expansion opportunities
Questions
1.
Could you give an overview of the UK pet retail market and the key trends that have shaped it over the last 36 months?
2.
How do pet parents differ from families in their shopping habits and treatment of their pets?
3.
How would you split the market between pet parents and families? Which of these groups do you think has grown more as a weighting of the total market?
4.
Do you expect continued growth within pet parents or a stable market mix with families?
5.
Could you segment the market by product type and describe how this has developed through coronavirus on the back of the trends you’ve mentioned?
6.
How would you segment food across premium, mass market and lower-value?
7.
You said food had an around 3% CAGR. Is this very much price- and mix-driven?
8.
Where do you think the real margin lies for players across food, vet services, grooming and accessories, including for pure players such as Pets at Home?
9.
Do you consider private label and the shift away from brands a major trend that still has legs to play?
10.
How have average basket size and shopping frequency trended over the last 12 months?
11.
Do you think there’s much discrepancy in average spend in-store vs online through a pure player such as Zooplus or Amazon?
12.
Could you discuss the weightings of the key channels within pet retail and how these have changed through the pandemic? What percentage of sales are coming from online and what market share do the D2C players hold?
13.
Have online sales for speciality pet retail grown through the pandemic? I would assume so.
14.
Does online sales growth bring any complexities for players such as Fetch, Zooplus or Pets at Home?
15.
Could you outline the competitors in the UK pet care retail market and their market shares? Who’s been winning and losing?
16.
Pets at Home’s VIP service seems to be highly sticky, but how do the veterinary services complement the company’s wider offering, given you said they have been declining? Do you expect this to rebound as an industry and for Pets at Home specifically? Do you think the vet services give something more to Pets at Home just through that recommendation of its own label?
17.
How do other D2C and pure players compare to Pets at Home given they lack the company’s ecosystem advantage?
18.
Which players stand out on price given its importance in the market? Who leads the market with a value offering, give you cited Zooplus as a price-first retailer?
19.
Do Zooplus or any other D2C players run a loyalty programme as Pets at Home does? I know Tails has a subscription service. How vital do you think loyalty programmes are for Pets at Home and industry players that don’t have it?
20.
Who do you think are the strongest players and how could this evolve over the next 2-3 years? Do you expect further growth to come from Pets at Home and Amazon?
21.
What is your market growth outlook for the next 2-3 years? Do you expect a slowdown after the boom of the last year?
22.
What’s your outlook for industry margins? Do you forecast any significant raw materials cost increases? Is there any scope for margin expansion amid the premiumisation trend you mentioned?
23.
Where could costs be absorbed along the value chain? Who do you think will suffer most? Could it be consumers through continued price increases?
24.
How would you say the pet industry performs through a recession, given the UK furlough scheme is ending in September and the potential for a global economic slowdown? How do you expect the pet sector to react?
