Should Your Pet Store Offer Subscription Services? 7 Considerations

You probably already know how well subscription services are working for big-box retailers. From Chewy to PetSmart, plenty of the pet industry’s biggest players offer automatic subscriptions — and profit from them.

But should your pet store offer subscription services as well, or would doing so place unnecessary strain on your small business? To help you decide, take these seven core considerations into account.

1. Do You Already Sell Subscription-Friendly Products?

Some products are naturally better suited to subscription services than others. Namely, consumable pet products that customers tend to purchase on a recurring basis.

For example:

• Pet food and treats
• Flea, tick, and heartworm medication
• Grooming products like shampoo, conditioner, and skin treatments
• Supplements and other over-the-counter medicines
• Cat litter, dog waste bags, and potty training pads

By contrast, nonconsumable items like crates, litter boxes, harnesses, collars, and leashes don’t lend themselves nearly as well to subscription services. These types of products may sell well for you, but that doesn’t mean customers will buy them frequently enough to justify paying for a subscription.

To see if your current product selection is already primed for subscription services, look at your pet store’s product categories and identify which ones are subscription-friendly.

2. Can Your Inventory Keep Up?

Subscription services can work well for many independent pet stores, but if your shop’s inventory infrastructure can’t handle recurring purchases, you might end up struggling to keep up with demand.

This is where robust inventory management software makes a big difference. With the right system, you can easily see:

• How much of each product you currently have in stock
• Which products sell quickly and which take longer to move
• Which items you need reorder

Using insights like these, you can better understand how a subscription service affects your inventory and see which orders you need to place more frequently, all while staying organized throughout the entire process.

On the other hand, if you’re still relying on a manual or outdated inventory management system, it may be smarter to hold off until you’ve upgraded to a more capable (and less time-consuming) solution before launching a subscription service.

Related Read: How To Manage Pet Store Inventory: Top Tips and Tools

3. Are Your Customers Already Making Recurring Purchases?

The products best suited to subscription services are consumable items that tend to get used up quickly and require frequent replenishment.

But what’s even more important than the products themselves is whether your customers are buying them repeatedly.

For instance, maybe your customers are especially inclined to buy dog food month after month, or maybe they keep returning for your store’s selection of grooming products. Depending on the market you serve, toys and seasonal pet clothing could also be strong candidates for a subscription service.

With your point of sale (POS) system’s built-in marketing tools, you can track your customers’ purchase history and see exactly what they’re buying again and again.

If your customers are already making recurring purchases, there’s a good chance they’ll be willing to try a subscription service, and you can avoid losing them to Chewy or Amazon simply by providing the convenience they’re looking for.

4. Can Your Margins Support a Subscription Service?

Convenience is just one reason customers sign up for subscription services — many are also drawn in by the opportunity to save money.

One McKinsey & Company survey found that among people who sign up for replenishment subscriptions (i.e., subscriptions that replenish products they repurchase regularly), 24% cite financial incentives as their primary reason for subscribing.

Similarly, 23% report that value for money is the main factor in their decision to continue a subscription.

Translation? A large portion of your customers may be interested in your pet store’s subscription service for the sole purpose of saving money.

When you’re thinking about offering subscription services, consider whether your profit margins can support discounted prices. For example, if you offer customers a 10% discount on the products they subscribe to, how much does that cut into your margins? If it eliminates or severely diminishes your profits, you may need to settle on a smaller discount or find other ways to improve your bottom line.

Related Read: Are Pet Stores Profitable? + How To Boost Your Bottom Line

5. How Will You Manage Fulfillment and Delivery?

Don’t forget to consider how you’ll get products to your customers.

In general, you have two main options:

• Shipping orders through a carrier like USPS, UPS or FedEx
• Delivering orders locally using your own vehicle

Each choice comes with its own requirements.

For example, if you choose to ship through a carrier, you handle packaging, labeling, weighing, and measuring each order, as well as dropping them off.

If you opt for delivering orders yourself, you pack and label each order, load them into your vehicle, plan an efficient route, and deliver them within a set time frame.

Depending on your pet store’s unique situation (and how many employees you can delegate tasks to), one option is likely a better fit than the other. What matters most is evaluating each approach ahead of time so you can make the best decision for your business.

6. Do You Have the Right Tools and Technology?

Subscription services may be convenient for customers, but for your pet store, they inevitably create some additional work in the back office.

Specifically, you need to effectively manage recurring billing and customer communications, ideally with purpose-built subscription tools.

You can use third-party tools to handle these demands, or you can use a solution like eTailPet that has them built right into your POS system.

eTailPet is equipped with tools that are specially designed to take the hassle out of offering subscription services, including:

• Recurring billing with flexible intervals
• Automated order reminders
• Personalized email and text communications

And since these tools are native to eTailPet, they’re easily accessible right from your POS dashboard.

Related Read: The Benefits of Having an All-in-One POS System for Your Pet Store

7. How Will You Promote Your Subscription Services?

As with any other product, customers won’t buy into your pet store’s subscription services if they don’t know they exist.

As a result, you need to continuously promote your store’s subscription services to drive sign-ups.

Here’s how to do it:

• Train employees to mention subscription services at the register.
• Include cards in every shopping bag that explain the subscription services and tell customers how to sign up.
• Send targeted marketing emails and texts.
• Place prominent signage next to subscription-friendly products, like bags of kibble or boxes of cat litter.
• Display savings-focused signs at the register to let customers know how much money they can save by setting up a subscription.
• Encourage customers (and even employees) to take cute videos of their pets receiving their subscription boxes, and then use them on social media.

You don’t have to employ every single one of these tactics, but the more you use them, the better your chances of securing new subscribers.

Related Read: 9 Marketing Ideas for Pet Stores [+ How To Implement Them]

Get Your Pet Subscription Services Off the Ground With eTailPet

If you decide to offer subscription services at your pet store, do so with eTailPet on your side. With comprehensive customer profiles, in-depth reporting, and smart ordering capabilities, you have exactly what you need to launch and manage profitable subscription services.

As an added bonus, our intuitive website builder makes it a breeze to create a professional, user-friendly site for both you and your customers. Thanks to eTailPet’s extensive catalog of more than 160,000 pet products, you’ll always have easy access to the items your customers love.

Want to see how eTailPet can adapt to your pet store’s needs? Build your custom POS to get a free quote in seconds.