Pet Retail Industry Trends for 2024: Webinar Recap

By Claire Obertin

CRC’s Pet Insights Council hosted their first webinar of the year in early April, titled Pet Retail & Animal Health Insights to Kick Off 2024.

During this session, our Pet research team shared their perspective on the 2024 pet landscape, discussing key macroeconomic trends, consumer behaviors, retailer forecasts, and animal health outlooks to start the year.

The goal of this webinar was to highlight opportunities for growth across all three pet channels – in store, online, and at the vet. We provided fresh ideas and best practices to help vendors align their strategies with both near and long-term growth potential, drawing from CRC’s extensive pet industry research.

Ending the session, our research team explored best practices we have identified across the pet channel as vendors look to drive growth across their businesses. Here are the top six insights based on pet industry trends:

Top 6 Pet Retail Industry Insights for 2024

1. Understand your value proposition to consumers and align it with targeted retailers or channels. Reevaluate strategic pet retailer relationships as needed.
2. Conduct assortment productivity reviews as brands look to identify SKU reduction risk items within portfolios, determine internal profitability, and explore opportunities for different pet retail partnerships.
3. Vet corporate groups are behaving more like retailers, such as offering exclusive deals and investing in in-store sales opportunities all in an effort to maintain in-clinic margin.
4. Pet retailers are seeking increased investment in Sponsored Ads / Retail Media platforms, with our research indicating favorable ROAS across retailers. It’s recommended to invest in these programs and utilize the data output for actionable pet industry insights.
5. Pet retail growth will be driven by units in 2024. This emphasizes the importance of growing attachment rates, platform engagement, and demand generation for sustainable growth strategies across channels.
6. We expect volatility in promotional cadence, consumer demand, and retailer ordering in 2024. This requires open lines of communication and close collaboration with retail partners.

For information about CRC’s Pet Insights Council, click here. You’ll learn more about our comprehensive research on pet industry trends and actionable pet retail insights for 2024.

Written By

Claire Obertin
Market Research Associate
Cleveland Research Company

Claire is a Market Research Associate at Cleveland Research Company, leading the Pet Insights Council, identifying and communicating key insights and trends across both the Pet Retail and Animal Health channels. Claire previously worked on the Home Improvement team at Cleveland Research. Prior to joining CRC, Claire worked for J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Claire holds a bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain & Operations Management and Marketing from Miami University.