estimated that around 62 per cent of Australian households have at least one pet, according to a study by the University of Melbourne, making caring for these animals big business: the pet category currently sits at approximately $15 billion annually, split between medical and discretionary supplies. “We believe that pet parents are being underserved by the industry,” Pet Circle chief marketing officer John Wild told Inside Retail.  “More than half of the money spent on discretionary items for pets are in supermarkets, where there’s very little customer education, a limited range, and typically the nutritional content is relatively limited.” The campaign is initially focused on Sydney in an effort to provide the best level of service possible and foster and grow a tight-knit community of customers.  People tend to remain pet owners for periods of around 10 years, according to Wild, so educating them at the beginning of their journey could potentially lead to a lifetime of brand loyalty. Certain trends in the category also vastly accelerated throughout the pandemic. Pet cameras, for example, have been in high demand since workers began returning to the office – many people grew accustomed to seeing their furry friends every day and want to check in on them when they’re away. Similarly, pet clothing and high-end food are continuing to see strong growth. “Our original proposition was ‘don’t lug around 20kg of dog food to your car, we’ll bring it to you’, but we’ve really expanded our range in the last few years,” Wild said.  “It’s currently at about 10,000 SKUs, and we’re looking at tripling that, because we want to provide that full experience.” Pet Circle has also invested in hiring more veterinarians in order to bolster its medical services, where it provides free online consultations and offers comprehensive pet food and exercise advice. Investing in the customer Much of this is possible at Pet Circle because of an impressive funding round that finished in December last year, valuing the business at over $1 billion – making it one of Australia’s newest unicorns.  The investment round was led by US-based Prysm Capital and Sydney’s TDM Growth Partners, and was based on the prediction that, as happened in the US, online pet care will grow substantially in the coming years. Investors believe that, as e-commerce penetration in Australia grows, a pureplay such as Pet Circle has the capability to grow well beyond the 5 per cent market share it currently holds. And, according to Wild, there are three key areas of growth that the business is targeting. “The first one is building proximity to customers, where there’s a warehouse in every state, and an expanded range,” Wild said.  “The second is people – specifically vets – to really build ourselves as educators for pet parents. We’ve invested heavily in customer lifecycle programs that help people, for example, transition a puppy to its adult needs: most people don’t know when it’s time to make that change, so we’ve now got a system that helps walk customers through that. “And the last one is to keep building brand knowledge. We’re an online business, we don’t have the benefit of retail stores, so we need to get the message out to a broader set of customers that perhaps aren’t early adopters of online shopping.”