Pet retailers across the world continue to make significant investments in adding more pet services to their offerings. Whereas it’s clear there is a growing demand for such services, we were interested to find out which services are most in demand in which countries.
Our survey was held amongst 1,572 pet owners in Canada, France, the UK, and the US. The vast majority of respondents (62.8%) are pet owners that use pet services.
Most popular services
Paying a visit to the vet is one of the most popular pet care services: 67% of pet owners take their pet to a vet. Interestingly, 78% of French pet owners visit vets, whereas in the US only 56% of pet owners do so.
Pet Care Services
Grooming services come in a close second, at 60%, without any real differences between countries or pet owner age groups.
Another popular service is that offered for taking care of pets during holidays or when owners are at work. One-fifth of respondents (22%) indicate they’ve used a dog walking service in the past 6 months. As for pet daycare or pet sitting services, 27% of respondents used such services.
US pet owners are less likely to pay for dog walking and daycare/pet sitting services than owners in other countries. The survey also showed that pet owners between 25 to 39 years of age are more likely to use pet care services. What’s more, UK pet owners (37%) pay for dog walking services.
Types of pet services
With pet health top of mind for most pet parents, it’s interesting to see that 13% of pet owners indicate they’ve visited a dog or cat nutrition consultant in the past 6 months.
Pet insurance
In the September issue of PETS International, we discussed the growing popularity of pet insurance. This survey shows that 45% of pet owners have pet insurance; 15% of pet owners indicate that their pets aren’t currently covered by insurance, but that they’re planning on taking one out.
UK pet owners (81%) are most likely to have pet insurance. US and Canadian pet owners are less likely to have insurance.
