How to Increase Your Pet Store's Profit Margin

Managing a retail business, as you know, can create some serious challenges, especially in improving your pet store’s profit margin. Today, shoppers are more price-conscious & quality-conscious than ever. and this matters because it is up to them for you to have sales! So here are proven methods to improve your pet store’s profit margin:

"Today, shoppers are more price-conscious & quality-conscious than ever. and this matters because it is up to them for you to have sales!"

FOCUS ON ONE THING.

The major mistake of pet stores? It’s trying to provide everything to everyone. If your pet store tries to meet the needs of pet parents by offering too many products, this will have a negative impact on your business. Why? Because you can’t be all things to all people. Try to think how much more profit you can make if you replaced the slow-moving items to more profitable ones.

Go with something you can solely focus on. These could be incontinence products, holistic pet foods, pet toys, anything. Ensure that the products you offer are of better quality than your competitors. Because if your products are not, nobody will buy. The quality you give your customer should equal what he requires and wants.

MARKET YOUR BUSINESS THROUGH COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Community involvement results in tangible outcomes by directly establishing consumer reliance and loyalty to your pet store.

Get involved in your local community! Begin by partnering with pet advocacy groups or pet shelters. How? You can organize talks, dog walks, programs for stray dogs, activities to encourage increased adoption at shelters, and giving out donations that will help the dogs your products are made for.

In the long run, this will show people how your pet store truly cares about them, and their fur-babies, it will also educate them on the significance of proper pet care. Customers will become invested in your pet store and will help you drive additional customers.

USE A TECH SAVVY APPROACH TO COMMUNICATE CONSTANTLY WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS

In this fast-paced world, technology and information are so readily available because of the internet. A website is a great help for you to market and promote your business. It has a far more extended range than any other sort of advertisement since people have easy access to the internet almost everywhere. By marketing your products online, your pet store business can have a global reach!

While it needs time to mount up traffic to your website to make a beneficial influence on your store`s marketing drive, putting up a website has very little to do with money aside from buying a domain name and hiring web designers. Of course, nothing this worthy comes totally free.

Your website should be convenient, clear and easy to navigate so that customers will immediately know who you are, what you offer, and why they should absolutely buy products from you. Also, be sure to put an emphasis on your social media platforms and online advertising through your website. Inform people where to follow you on social media.

Facebook

  • Has a huge number of total audience
  • Offers platforms in forms of groups, pages and advertisements
  • Costs low marketing expenses
  • Allows you to target your potential customers (basing on location, age, and interests
  • Increases your web traffic

Instagram

  • Supports any size of business
  • Allows business to tag products in photos with links, products descriptions, price and the ‘Shop Now” call for action
  • Makes business relatable with the use of stories and live stories
  • Allows you to collaborate or work with well-known influencers
  • Increases your visibility through the use hashtags

Twitter

  • Allows you to send messages to your potential customers after they follow  you
  • Offers free marketing with a 140 character pitch
  • Keeps your customers updated
  • Helps you build a community via Twitter chats by Buffer and SEMRush where influencers are able to participate.

Youtube

  • Guarantees you to find a group of people that are potential fans and customers
  • Helps you to be found via Google Search
  • Grows your audience worldwide because of its global reach
  • Targets your audience with AdWords for video ( advertising on videos your audience are likely to watch)

Your website should also contain why your pet store is unique, a clear sense of what you offer, contact information (email, phone number, physical location), user-friendly navigation, clear guidelines on how to order/where to go/etc., FAQs, call to action (Buy Now, Sign up for newsletter, etc). If you think your pet store still isn’t capable of offering online orders and creating a shipping system, you can opt for store pickups and the like.

WORK WITH GREAT PEOPLE

In any business, you are only as amazing or as terrible as the people you work with. In other words, you are only as strong as your weakest link. Make sure that all your staff members are constantly on their toes, are knowledgeable enough to talk about your products to other people, and are always approaching customers in a friendly, positive manner. To make sure of this, before putting your staff into the battlefield, training them first is a big help.

Create a working atmosphere that allows you to exchange ideas and information off of each other, which will allow you and all of your employees to serve as a confident, credible resource of information for your customers.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

“Did you know that natural antlers are much better than dog chew toys? Did you know that washable dog diapers can be used in more than one functional way? Listen to this list of uses for these washable pee pads…

As a pet expert, these are all things that you do know! So take your pet expert superpowers, and use them! As a lot of your customers most likely do not know these things, it’s you and your staff’s job to provide any answers to questions and concerns to satisfy your customers.

By redefining your business, your culture, closely analyzing competition, product, and profit margins, you will not only increase your profit margin but build a strong and sturdy base and stay on top of the trends and pitfalls that many specialty retail shops battle every single day.

"Create a working atmosphere that allows you to exchange ideas and information off of each other, which will allow you and all of your employees to serve as a confident, credible resource of information for your customers."