Today I found an old article tracking back to 1999 in New York , USA . It is about a report relevent to on-line sales in NYC at that time.
Just share it here for your reference . The contents are as below .
With pet ownership in U.S. households running at 60% and consumer spending on Fido and Fluffy growing at a robust 15% annually, the Internet has attracted both pure-play and bricks-and-mortar pet supplies specialists.
On-line sales of pet-related goods should reach $299 million this year, according to Forester research, and Internet sales could top $2.5 billion by 2002.
Although on-line sales represent less than 1% of the $23 billion pet supplies industry, the pace of consolidation, partnerships and acquisitions among Internet players in this segment has been swift.
The No. 1 pure-player in the business by traffic count is privately held Petsmart.com, which launched six months ago and attracted 1.2 million visitors in October, according to Media Metrix. That's more than twice as many clicks as the No. 2 Internet retailer, petopia.com, which had 559,000 visitors in the same month.
Petsmart.com is using $75 million in financing to build on the name recognition of its major investor, PetsMart. Outside investors include idealab, which last summer merged its start-up PetJungle.com into the site for a 50% stake, and Big Dog Holdings, whose boutique is featured on Petsmart.com.
Tom McGovern, president and ceo of Petsmart.com, said the parent company sees the California-based Internet venture as a multi-year investment that could eventually result in an IPO. He believes PetsMart's brand recognition reduces the amount of investment the e-business needs to sink into advertising.
The company also has a well-established backend that allows for shipping directly to the consumer. Petsmart.com buys from the same vendors as its bricks-and-mortar parent, McGovern said. "And because we have those assets in place, we have a huge advantage over other pure-players."
Bricks-and-mortar rival Petco made a strategic partnership with pure-player petopia.com just six months ago, taking a 20% stake in the business. The alliance allows Petco to extend its bricks-andmortar-based pet care brand into a broader line of merchandise. For petopia.com, which invested more than $79 million in the venture, the attraction is Petco's position in the industry as well as its consumer base and supplier relationships. Other partners in petopia's investment arrangement are Groupe Arnault and Technology Crossover Ventures.
Among the pure-player competitors is 13month-old pets.com, which offers more than 13,000 skus and reportedly does an average ticket price of $100. The site also features columns about pet care written by a team of pet experts as well as 60 message boards for 11 different types of pets. Spokeswoman Karen Gould said the communitybuilding boards are actively used by more than 100,000 consumers.
Although pets.com. lacks the bricks-and-mortar backbone that help support its top two rivals, Gould noted that the off-line pet supplies business is highly fragmented among specialty retailers, discounters and grocers. "There are a lot of small stores out there," she said. "No one is really dominant yet." On the plus side of the ledger, the privately held company is being funded by three big names in on-line shopping: Amazon.com, Bowman Capital and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, which contributed a combined $50 million in second round financing for the venture in mid-1999.
The lure of potentially explosive on-line sales potential has also drawn regional player Pets Warehouse, a two-store operation based on Long Island in New York. Its site, petswarehouse.com, offers a 34,000-sku on-line catalog, 700 pages of pet-related content, a chat room and an "experts on call" feature to build market share and attract users.
Bob Novak, ceo of the privately held company, said its competitive advantage is its animal expertise. "We have 26 of years experience," said Novak, who founded his company in 1974. "Unlike our competitors, who only know the Net, we know the industry."
In January, the site will add a special "veterinarian page" with a full-time vet available to answer consumer questions, approve prescription drugs and interface with customers through of online forums. Petswarehouse.com also has formed an exclusive alliance with Cosmos, a pet-oriented shopping network site. Petswarehouse is allied with more than 200 pet-related sites on a commission sale basis. Claiming a 9% market share, Novak said he is currently looking for a venture capital group to take the company public.
Petstore.com, another new player, entered into a lucrative deal with Discovery Communications Inc. last November, which brought in a windfall of $97 million in funding. Discovery Communications is the parent company of the Animal Planet cable network, and petstore.com is banking that the relationship will place them at the forefront of the on-line pet world. The alliance will include an exclusive license to Animal Planet content and access to Animal Planet and Discovery Channel-- branded merchandise. Petstore said it will use the funding to support growth of the site and plans to improve its existing infrastructure.
Shopping convenience remains the top sales driver in the on-line pet supplies category, according to the NPD Group of Long Island, N.Y., and on-line shoppers have identified the following factors in deciding where to shop: 24/7 convenience (54%); direct delivery of goods (48%); low prices (47%); on-line discounts (35%); and no waiting or standing in line (34%). In addition, NPD reports that 40% of on-line shoppers in this category buy pet toys, 36% buy miscellaneous non-food accessories, 31% buy pet food, and 30% buy pet treats. The most encouraging results for the study, though, point to user satisfaction: While nearly 30% of Web users have visited an Internet pet site to make purchases on line, more than half say they were "very satisfied with the experience."
TOP FIVE PET SUPPLIES SITES
As far as I know , PetSmart is still existing now and become the top one of the pet industry.They have branch office here in China.
The news said it is the time for Smart machines and Algorithm managing system world now.How's the pet business going on in USA and China today ?
Who is going to be the top 5 in the next 20 years ? We are looking forward to it .
Copyright Lebhar-Friedman, Inc. Dec 13, 1999
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