Global Pet E-Commerce: A Dynamic Channel In a Growing Market

Executive Summary

• Spending on pets is growing globally as more people consider pets a part of their family. Global pet food sales grew by 4% in 2015, to $70 billion.
• More of that spending is happening online. Globally, an estimated 5.3% of total pet care sales were online in 2015, up from 4.4% in 2014.
• The American Pet Products Association reports that Americans spent over $60 billion on their pets in 2015, up 3.9% from the previous year. We estimate around 7% of US pet care sales were made online in 2015, up from 6.4% in 2014.
• Chinese pet owners have flocked to the Internet to purchase pet food: the Internet captured an estimated 38% of total pet food sales in the country in 2015.
• In the US, e-tailers Chewy.com and Amazon dominate the US pet food e-commerce market, and are far ahead of specialist pet retailers PetSmart and Petco.