Tech-Savvy Pet Stores: Embrace Technology to Stay Ahead and Win

The pet care industry is booming. The American Pet Products Association report, “Strategic Insights for the Pet Industry: Pet Owners 2023 and Beyond,” shows that 66 percent of U.S. households that have pets, and that number is only going to keep rising. Pet supply retailers have a lot to gain, if they’re equipped to take advantage of the momentum.

At Lightspeed, our research into the retail industry points to a simple truth: technology leads to better outcomes for businesses.

The good news is integrating new technology doesn’t have to mean a complete overhaul. It’s about making current processes more efficient.

To illustrate, let’s go over how three pet stores are using technology to enhance their business.

Trying to reach new customers? You need a better way to show up on Google.

You’re carrying what your community needs. But how do you let them know you’ve got it in stock?

Donna’s Pet Depot, a pet supply business in New Jersey, needed a new way to connect potential customers with their extensive stock. Without an easy way to organize and promote products online, it was an uphill battle to claim valuable space at the top of Google’s search results.

So Donna’s decided to pull out a secret weapon, a shortcut to the top of the page: Google’s own Local Inventory ads. A seamless connection with their point of sale helping automate the ads meant barely any manual work.

Looking to improve the customer experience? You need streamlined payments.

Grooming services can create loyal lifetime customers, but require efficient payment systems for tips. That’s not always easy to handle.

For more than two decades, California’s South Bark Dog Wash has been serving animal lovers with their signature service: grooming. They tried to get around the tipping issue by juggling two payment processors—an expensive, inefficient band aid solution.

Swapping to a POS with embedded payments meant South Bark no longer needed their second payment processor. Now, there are less steps to taking tips, making it simpler for customers and employees both. South Bark has been able to increase tipping revenue by 11 percent with their new, more straightforward Lightspeed Payments terminals.

Too many SKUs? You need better reporting.

Pet stores typically manage numerous SKUs, making it easy to lose track of inventory.

Consider Jungle Bob’s Reptile World, a reptile supply store based in New York. When Bob Smith took over the aging business, he knew they needed new customers to survive, but breaking through outdated management methods to execute a plan was hard.

At the core of the issue? No tech. No tools. No visibility. All they had was a cash register, with no inventory management system to speak of.

Adopting Lightspeed’s POS provided the data to prune stock, order what customers needed and tailor the store to the community’s interests.

Get the technology that keeps customers — and their pets — coming back

Keeping up with an evolving industry and beating out tough competition means seizing on opportunities offered by new POS tech trends. Incorporating new tools doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming — especially if you choose a POS system like Lightspeed.