How to Start a Pet Store: Marketing Checklist for New Pet Store Owners

May 25

So, you’re interested in starting a pet store, huh?

Awesome! We are 1,000% on board. There are an infinite number of reasons WHY you should start a pet store:

It’s a recession-proof and pandemic-proof industry. Check out some of the Pet Business Professor’s recent data and analysis on pet industry growth. Even during the pandemic, the pet industry continued to grow in almost every area. You can find supporting documentation through a standard search engine that will find articles from numerous other sources that corroborate the data.
The pet industry is a fun, helpful industry to be in. Competition exists, but in our experience, it’s frequently set aside in the name of helping pets, animals, and the people that have devoted their lives to do that. You can be part of that movement!
You can be around pets all day, every day. If you’re a dog-lover, cat-lover, bird-lover, reptile-lover, or any other animal-lover, there’s a need and a niche for you in the pet industry.
There are a ton of ways to start a pet store! You can join a franchise, you can open up an online e-Commerce store, you can open up a brick-and-mortar pet supplies store, or you can join the services side of the industry through grooming, boarding, training, or any combination of these. There’s opportunity everywhere.
Given the variety within the pet industry, your startup costs can vary greatly from inexpensive to expensive. It all depends on what you want and what your appetite for investment/risk is, but the options are there.

Dog sitting on the floor of a pet store with their human looking at a dog food bowl.

So, with plenty of reasons to start a pet store, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of this article. Let’s say you’ve done your research, you know the initial steps on how to start a pet store (legally, financially, etc etc), and now you’re wondering… how do I market my new pet store?

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some kind of roadmap or marketing checklist for new pet store owners to make sure that they get off on the right foot and start profiting faster?

Well, now there is! At Pet Engine Marketing, our goal is to help pet store owners with their marketing. We’ve been working with independent pet retailers for years and have clients across the country (just check our testimonials!) to help them with their pet store marketing strategy, social media, email marketing, websites, SEO/SEM, and more.

We’ve combined our experience in the pet industry with our experience as small business owners to come up with The Marketing Checklist for New Pet Store Owners. The idea is to make sure that you get started on the right foot, and these pet store marketing ideas should take place within the first 6-12 months of ownership — and depending on the results you might not want to stop there! So take a look at the marketing checklist and we hope to hear from you to support you on your journey of helping pets, running a profitable pet store, and marketing your pet store in your community successfully!