As a life long dog owner, I love following pet trends. The Mini Trends blog has a nice post on both pet trends and the "Petrepreneurs" who are building businesses related to pets.
The post has a good "state of the pet nation" description:
"Even though more households have a dog than a cat, cats have the upper paw, with 93.6 million feline pets compared with 77.5 million canines. However, there are more pet fish than cats and dogs combined: 171.7 million of them swimming in American aquariums. Rounding out the menagerie are 15 million birds, 13 million horses, and, yesss, over 13 million reptiles."
We spend a lot of money on our pets, almost $50 billion in 2010. The chart below shows the amazing growth of in the amount we spend on our pets.
A couple of things hit me about this chart. First, the pet industry missed the Great Recession. I can't think of many industries that had close to 20% revenue growth from 2007 to 2010.
I'm also struck by the total amount we spend on pets and how it continues to grow at a much faster rate than inflation and the overall economy. This trend will likely continue due to an increasing number of "pet parents" - mostly aging baby boomers - who dote on their pets.
For more on pet trends, see Pet Business Trends 2011 by the CEO of pet insurance company Embrace.
(Note to Mini Trends blog: I think "Petrepreneurs" sounds like a dinosaur. How about "Pet-preneurs" with or without the hyphen instead.)
Well I'm also a boomer with pets so nice to see pets are given the care they deserve
Posted by: Allan | April 02, 2011 at 09:49 PM
I too adore pets so much and its nice to know that the industry is growing. Kudos for giving us a heads-up.
Posted by: Small Business Project Management Software | March 25, 2011 at 03:02 AM
I love pets. They must be given a proper care too.
Posted by: cathodic protection design | March 25, 2011 at 02:45 AM
Pets must be given equal and high priority and be taken proper care. http://www.newtsk.com/ Pets just make our lives more pleasant.
Posted by: Pet Industry | March 24, 2011 at 09:15 PM
In my view it's not a good business. Pets must allowed to live with full freedom as we are...
Posted by: cheap shopping | March 24, 2011 at 07:26 AM