Pet food, pet care to keep growing, driven by ecommerce

The global pet care market cracked the US$100 billion sales ceiling in 2016, thanks to a healthy 4.7 percent increase over the year before. Euromonitor International projects that growth to continue, with sales for all pet products and services globally reaching US$117 billion by 2021, a compound annual growth rate of 2.4 percent at constant prices. Pet food will maintain its significant contributions; it accounted for US$75.25 billion of the 2016 sales (at 4.8 percent growth), or nearly 73 percent of all pet care. Increasingly, both pet care and pet food sales growth is driven by ecommerce as that channel rises in popularity among pet owners, particularly younger ones. The share of pet care sales from the online channel varies from 8 percent in Western Europe to a high of 17 percent in Asia. In Eastern Asia markets like China and Korea, nearly one-third of cat and dog food is bought online, according to Euromonitor.In the US market, 9 percent of pet care sales occurred online in 2016, according to Packaged Facts’ latest report, “US Pet Market Outlook, 2017-2018.” Specific to pet food, ecommerce accounted for 7 percent of 2016 sales. Packaged Facts went so far as to describe the internet as the “new pet parent, as a dramatic force reshaping the market landscape.”