300 Petco Stores To Open in Rural Lowe's Stores

[storewanderer]

To some degree, what you describe in the middle paragraph is similar to those Tractor Supply stores that were mentioned. They do carry some regular brands, but also many of the more premium brands of pet foods, plus they do that with the vet coming in (seems to be Sundays around here) for many basic services.

Of course, they have lots of other stuff besides pet food as well, as of course a Lowe's would.

Also Tractor has its own pet chain, PetSense or whatever it is called, which is quite similar to a Petco in mix (not nearly the depth of Petsmart). So they have access to a supply chain of a lot of pet items, and I have found their pet mix to vary by store pretty significantly.

Obviously Lowe's and Petco liked the results of these small departments and that is why the initiative is expanding. And maybe nothing stops Lowes from setting up a rack nearby that has commodity type pet food brands like Pedigree, etc. either...

[buckguy]

To some degree, what you describe in the middle paragraph is similar to those Tractor Supply stores that were mentioned. They do carry some regular brands, but also many of the more premium brands of pet foods, plus they do that with the vet coming in (seems to be Sundays around here) for many basic services.

Of course, they have lots of other stuff besides pet food as well, as of course a Lowe's would.

Also Tractor has its own pet chain, PetSense or whatever it is called, which is quite similar to a Petco in mix (not nearly the depth of Petsmart). So they have access to a supply chain of a lot of pet items, and I have found their pet mix to vary by store pretty significantly.

Obviously Lowe's and Petco liked the results of these small departments and that is why the initiative is expanding. And maybe nothing stops Lowes from setting up a rack nearby that has commodity type pet food brands like Pedigree, etc. either...

Lowe's already has leased departments which just aren't obvious to the public. Ferguson's handles their bathroom hardware.

[wnetmacman]

Also Tractor has its own pet chain, PetSense or whatever it is called, which is quite similar to a Petco in mix (not nearly the depth of Petsmart). So they have access to a supply chain of a lot of pet items, and I have found their pet mix to vary by store pretty significantly.

Petsense, while owned by TSC, is a far smaller, rural pet store, largely only found in places where PetSmart and Petco don't fit. As you've all mentioned, their mix is smaller, by far, than the other two. From the store I've seen, it was like they took the pet section from a typical TSC, expanded it a little, then gave it it's own store. Petsense was a 2016 purchase by TSC.

With the subject at hand, I believe Lowe's was looking for a partner to fill a little free space in most of their stores. If this is to be run by the typical Lowe's employee, it will fail. It Petco runs it, it may succeed, but I know of few places where you have Lowe's and not Petco nearby, which is why it will only be 300 stores. My Lowe's will not get it, owing to a local Petco within 2 miles.

[Brian Lutz]

Petsense, while owned by TSC, is a far smaller, rural pet store, largely only found in places where PetSmart and Petco don't fit. As you've all mentioned, their mix is smaller, by far, than the other two. From the store I've seen, it was like they took the pet section from a typical TSC, expanded it a little, then gave it it's own store. Petsense was a 2016 purchase by TSC.

Looking at the pet stores within Greensboro it seems that there are two PetSense locations (plus another outside of Winston-Salem) and none of them seem to be particularly rural. There are also a couple of Lowe's stores in the rural areas north of the Triad (Reidsville and Mayodan) which seem like they would be good candidates for the Petco departments. Neither has much competition besides the Walmart pet department nearby, and both are some distance from any of the bigger pet stores in Greensboro.

[ClownLoach]

I really prefer Petco over PetSmart. PetSmart to me is way overpriced and employees don't seem to be that knowledgeable about products. Petco stores seem to be well staffed and have a nice variety of product.

PetSmart is another big retailer that was destroyed by private equity. I only keep tropical fish which require many chemicals and additives to maintain the water chemistry. The products that most experienced fishkeepers use come from very reputable brands that have been around several decades and use patented, proprietary formulas that are scientifically tested like pharmaceuticals. PetSmart has replaced nearly all of the good brands with house brand products. I would never consider using noname, questionable chemicals in my aquarium. Something like a chlorine remover that doesn't work correctly would cause the near immediate death of all of my prized fishes, some of whom I have had more than a decade and due to size are worth hundreds of dollars each. Fish foods actually can and do affect the health of the fish, poor quality foods deliver less nutrition and the fish will lose color and become lethargic and prone to illness. I had trusted a food brand that apparently had nutritional deficiency and several of my prize fish literally started to experience malnutrition related disease where they were getting open sores on their body. Thus I'd never trust PetSmart brand food, or even entry level products from reputable brands like Tetra. It is very frustrating because PetSmart has put many quality pet stores out of business with what was a winning formula of the biggest and best selection coupled with lowest prices. Now they have SKU rationalized the selection down to the point where many stores have giant empty spaces between the walls and the aisles. The removal of brand name products means that now I'm forced to order most of my everyday need items from Amazon. Worse, some of the brands I buy are intentionally forbidden for sale on Amazon because their manufacturers want to protect brick and mortar stores - but those stores closed in many areas due to the impact of PetSmart. You could say they are worse than the impact Walmart has had. We know Walmart enters a market with low low prices and puts the competition out of business then has been known to raise prices back up. But at least Walmart doesn't remove all the product assortment once they're the only game in town. PetSmart has done exactly that and I am disgusted by their practices. Their private equity owners are shortsighted because they're forcing the customer to buy online from the competition, and thus accelerating their own demise.

Right now they aren't even close, which is a major advantage for PetSmart if they have what you need as all their stores carry the same stuff.

Petsmart has had a big push on removing slow moving inventory items from their stores for a while now. That fish and accessories category has been one where they were not performing well on moving inventory for many years. At this point their fish category is watered down to the point that it is basically for the kid and parent who have never had a fish before and think it is a cool idea to get a glass bowl and spend 20 minutes picking the color of rocks to buy and spend another 20 minutes debating what color fish to buy. Then a week later when the bowl is muggy and needs to be cleaned they realize they didn't actually want a fish after all and that is the end of their fish adventure. Their fish category isn't for anyone serious about having a nice fish tank with a lot of unique fish types, etc.

Fish used to be a great category for Petco. It was always staffed, sometimes by multiple employees, the fish were pretty well cared for considering the number of tanks they had, and the assortment of accessories was impressive. Now the area is not staffed much more than the dog toy aisle, and it feels like they don't care about it.

I think we are probably way off track in this discussion, but in my semi-expert opinion the PetSmart assortment in fish accessories is bizarre. Yes, they have a lot of entry level stuff for the mom and dad who have a little kid that wants a fishtank, but they have a massive amount of very expensive high end goods. Some of their filters and such are hundreds of dollars and wouldn't work with a single tank sold in the store. There are many very high end items sold there. That is what makes the assortment so frustrating and bizarre to me. They carry novice level, store brand crap for essentials needed at all levels of fishkeeping, and then some expert level filters, pumps etc. If they were purging the slowest selling items they've failed dismally because few experts are buying a $350 pressurized canister filter for their 500 gallon tank at PetSmart. All they have successfully done is removed any of the items that would bring a everyday customer (novice to expert) from their store, like quality food and chemicals, and force them to either buy them from Amazon or drive to a specialist. The entire assortment is the polar opposite of what it should be. The easiest comparison would be if they kept all the same accessories for dogs (carriers, leashes, grooming etc.) but decided to discontinue all the dog food except for a small aisle of PetSmart brand food. Suddenly there would be zero "everyday routine visits" to their store. What they've done with fish is the same thing. You could buy a kiddie tank as discussed, or maybe a pump or filter if you were repairing a major tank in the hundreds of gallons, but those are "one and done" purchases. They do not have the appropriate products for everyday business because they've deliberately chosen to remove nearly all reputable products and replace with high margin store brands that nobody in their right mind would trust.

Petco surprisingly carries a wide range at the stores with a large fish department of brand name products, but they are a inconsistent mess as discussed with tiny sites with large fish areas, large stores with small fish areas, and so on. They do store brands on the stuff that doesn't matter like decorations, but carry the appropriate brand names in foods and chemicals. I've been able on multiple occasions to visit the Petco five minutes away and get a medication, part, or other urgent item without either ordering from Amazon or driving to a specialty store. Petco spends all their money on the constant prototype revamps and remodels in their home market of San Diego and the money never goes out to the rest of the chain. In San Diego county Petco stores are even carrying world class product like Waterbox aquariums that cost thousands of dollars and people are buying them because it ordinarily would take weeks/months for the manufacturer to fulfill a direct order.

[storewanderer]

I think we are probably way off track in this discussion, but in my semi-expert opinion the PetSmart assortment in fish accessories is bizarre. Yes, they have a lot of entry level stuff for the mom and dad who have a little kid that wants a fishtank, but they have a massive amount of very expensive high end goods. Some of their filters and such are hundreds of dollars and wouldn't work with a single tank sold in the store. There are many very high end items sold there. That is what makes the assortment so frustrating and bizarre to me. They carry novice level, store brand crap for essentials needed at all levels of fishkeeping, and then some expert level filters, pumps etc. If they were purging the slowest selling items they've failed dismally because few experts are buying a $350 pressurized canister filter for their 500 gallon tank at PetSmart. All they have successfully done is removed any of the items that would bring a everyday customer (novice to expert) from their store, like quality food and chemicals, and force them to either buy them from Amazon or drive to a specialist. The entire assortment is the polar opposite of what it should be. The easiest comparison would be if they kept all the same accessories for dogs (carriers, leashes, grooming etc.) but decided to discontinue all the dog food except for a small aisle of PetSmart brand food. Suddenly there would be zero "everyday routine visits" to their store. What they've done with fish is the same thing. You could buy a kiddie tank as discussed, or maybe a pump or filter if you were repairing a major tank in the hundreds of gallons, but those are "one and done" purchases. They do not have the appropriate products for everyday business because they've deliberately chosen to remove nearly all reputable products and replace with high margin store brands that nobody in their right mind would trust.

Petco surprisingly carries a wide range at the stores with a large fish department of brand name products, but they are a inconsistent mess as discussed with tiny sites with large fish areas, large stores with small fish areas, and so on. They do store brands on the stuff that doesn't matter like decorations, but carry the appropriate brand names in foods and chemicals. I've been able on multiple occasions to visit the Petco five minutes away and get a medication, part, or other urgent item without either ordering from Amazon or driving to a specialty store. Petco spends all their money on the constant prototype revamps and remodels in their home market of San Diego and the money never goes out to the rest of the chain. In San Diego county Petco stores are even carrying world class product like Waterbox aquariums that cost thousands of dollars and people are buying them because it ordinarily would take weeks/months for the manufacturer to fulfill a direct order.

Do you think the Petsmart fish department is possibly just selling down these items and not replenishing, and that is why you see many items gone but a lot of very slow moving items still there? When I look at their shelves they only have 1-2 units of a lot of these items and you can tell from the packaging the the items have been sitting around a while. They also seem to have some items spread out on the shelves so the items do not touch one another (not enough items in planogram to fill all the the shelves, and they've already shortened aisles).

I also wonder if Petco got some of these vendors to sign exclusive deals with them. Petco does hit some rural markets Petsmart is not in.

[ClownLoach]

I think we are probably way off track in this discussion, but in my semi-expert opinion the PetSmart assortment in fish accessories is bizarre. Yes, they have a lot of entry level stuff for the mom and dad who have a little kid that wants a fishtank, but they have a massive amount of very expensive high end goods. Some of their filters and such are hundreds of dollars and wouldn't work with a single tank sold in the store. There are many very high end items sold there. That is what makes the assortment so frustrating and bizarre to me. They carry novice level, store brand crap for essentials needed at all levels of fishkeeping, and then some expert level filters, pumps etc. If they were purging the slowest selling items they've failed dismally because few experts are buying a $350 pressurized canister filter for their 500 gallon tank at PetSmart. All they have successfully done is removed any of the items that would bring a everyday customer (novice to expert) from their store, like quality food and chemicals, and force them to either buy them from Amazon or drive to a specialist. The entire assortment is the polar opposite of what it should be. The easiest comparison would be if they kept all the same accessories for dogs (carriers, leashes, grooming etc.) but decided to discontinue all the dog food except for a small aisle of PetSmart brand food. Suddenly there would be zero "everyday routine visits" to their store. What they've done with fish is the same thing. You could buy a kiddie tank as discussed, or maybe a pump or filter if you were repairing a major tank in the hundreds of gallons, but those are "one and done" purchases. They do not have the appropriate products for everyday business because they've deliberately chosen to remove nearly all reputable products and replace with high margin store brands that nobody in their right mind would trust.

Petco surprisingly carries a wide range at the stores with a large fish department of brand name products, but they are a inconsistent mess as discussed with tiny sites with large fish areas, large stores with small fish areas, and so on. They do store brands on the stuff that doesn't matter like decorations, but carry the appropriate brand names in foods and chemicals. I've been able on multiple occasions to visit the Petco five minutes away and get a medication, part, or other urgent item without either ordering from Amazon or driving to a specialty store. Petco spends all their money on the constant prototype revamps and remodels in their home market of San Diego and the money never goes out to the rest of the chain. In San Diego county Petco stores are even carrying world class product like Waterbox aquariums that cost thousands of dollars and people are buying them because it ordinarily would take weeks/months for the manufacturer to fulfill a direct order.

Do you think the Petsmart fish department is possibly just selling down these items and not replenishing, and that is why you see many items gone but a lot of very slow moving items still there? When I look at their shelves they only have 1-2 units of a lot of these items and you can tell from the packaging the the items have been sitting around a while. They also seem to have some items spread out on the shelves so the items do not touch one another (not enough items in planogram to fill all the the shelves, and they've already shortened aisles).

I also wonder if Petco got some of these vendors to sign exclusive deals with them. Petco does hit some rural markets Petsmart is not in.

They do seem to replenish the slow moving big ticket items. Again my objection to PetSmart right now in that category is the private equity driven push to convert to store brand products. It isn't as easy to come up with safe and effective chemicals as it might be for a store brand dog food. The reputable vendors they kicked out had proprietary and patented products that are tested to the equivalent of pharmaceuticals (independent lab testing and such). The same for foods for pretty much anything besides dogs, cats and birds. The rest of their assortment is just odd as the higher end products aren't compatible with anything else they sell. It's just a category that is adrift and not being well taken care of but in a company the size of PetSmart that could be a billion dollar segment of the business that they're throwing away (and it's a category that is known to have heavy markups not to mention that if you sell majority fish that can be captive bred you literally can make your own near free product at your facilities). I am looking to adopt a very hard to find breed of cat that I have had before; I am curious as to what my experience will be in purchasing food and accessories for the cat once I get one. It seems the space dedicated to cats was also dramatically reduced at PetSmart. Really, all of their stores have reduced space but it's most obvious in the older prototypes that are nearing 30 years old - they removed nearly half of the gondolas on the back end and there's a 25-30 foot gap of empty floor between the back endcap and the wall.

[ClownLoach]

Petco surprisingly carries a wide range at the stores with a large fish department of brand name products, but they are a inconsistent mess as discussed with tiny sites with large fish areas, large stores with small fish areas, and so on. They do store brands on the stuff that doesn't matter like decorations, but carry the appropriate brand names in foods and chemicals. I've been able on multiple occasions to visit the Petco five minutes away and get a medication, part, or other urgent item without either ordering from Amazon or driving to a specialty store. Petco spends all their money on the constant prototype revamps and remodels in their home market of San Diego and the money never goes out to the rest of the chain. In San Diego county Petco stores are even carrying world class product like Waterbox aquariums that cost thousands of dollars and people are buying them because it ordinarily would take weeks/months for the manufacturer to fulfill a direct order.

Do you think the Petsmart fish department is possibly just selling down these items and not replenishing, and that is why you see many items gone but a lot of very slow moving items still there? When I look at their shelves they only have 1-2 units of a lot of these items and you can tell from the packaging the the items have been sitting around a while. They also seem to have some items spread out on the shelves so the items do not touch one another (not enough items in planogram to fill all the the shelves, and they've already shortened aisles).

I also wonder if Petco got some of these vendors to sign exclusive deals with them. Petco does hit some rural markets Petsmart is not in.

I think some of these high end vendors might have "big chain exclusive" deals with Petco but their bread and butter is the independent expert who can not only sell the product but all the accessories that will exceed the price of the product, then go out and deliver, install and even maintain the product. A brand like Waterbox which sells a $2500 aquarium and stand that is the same size as a $139 cheap tank is probably not expecting Petco to be able to exactly explain why it is so much better that it's worth 1800% more. But it does get them in front of more eyes, and Petco has the money to invest in the inventory to keep it in stock. Most independent dealers take a deposit and make an order that could take a month or two to come in.

Some of the premium brands in pets are starting to go the opposite way and make their products not available online or in large chains. You're seeing a lot of smaller independent pet stores opening selling boutique foods and accessories. These brands don't want to be forced to make the types of decisions that can be imposed on them by very large companies like the big chains. Some of these brands that were small independents focused on quality have been forced to lower their standards when they're pressed for price reductions, tougher payment terms etc. When they sign a deal with a company like PetSmart or Petco or even Target that triples the size of their business... Once the big customer wants a better deal or threatens to leave you've got no choice but to give it to them after investing in all the overhead, staffing, inventory and so on...

[storewanderer]

They do seem to replenish the slow moving big ticket items. Again my objection to PetSmart right now in that category is the private equity driven push to convert to store brand products. It isn't as easy to come up with safe and effective chemicals as it might be for a store brand dog food. The reputable vendors they kicked out had proprietary and patented products that are tested to the equivalent of pharmaceuticals (independent lab testing and such). The same for foods for pretty much anything besides dogs, cats and birds. The rest of their assortment is just odd as the higher end products aren't compatible with anything else they sell. It's just a category that is adrift and not being well taken care of but in a company the size of PetSmart that could be a billion dollar segment of the business that they're throwing away (and it's a category that is known to have heavy markups not to mention that if you sell majority fish that can be captive bred you literally can make your own near free product at your facilities). I am looking to adopt a very hard to find breed of cat that I have had before; I am curious as to what my experience will be in purchasing food and accessories for the cat once I get one. It seems the space dedicated to cats was also dramatically reduced at PetSmart. Really, all of their stores have reduced space but it's most obvious in the older prototypes that are nearing 30 years old - they removed nearly half of the gondolas on the back end and there's a 25-30 foot gap of empty floor between the back endcap and the wall.

Petsmart used to have a high volume equine category in some stores (Reno had it) with a lot of high dollar/high margin items. That entire area was removed from the store years ago. They walked from that. It wouldn't have worked at every store but in any given market there was probably one store where the concept would have worked. This was before stores like Cal Ranch, Big R, or Tractor Supply operated anywhere in the area. The only equine type stores were in hard to reach edges of town open limited hours/closed weekends.

Obviously whoever they had running the fish category previously who understood the business left/was laid off and the current category people are approaching it like a commodity category. Gee why is this category with "accessory items" so skewed toward name brands vs. the other accessory categories in the store? They probably think chemicals are an "accessory item" like a toy or a bowl. So they think they have a big margin opportunity. It is too bad because they have nice big stores and the fish category could have been something to build. But it also takes labor to run that category properly which in my view they haven't properly allocated in years. So when store operations doesn't want to put the labor needed into the department and the buyers/category managers don't understand the category and think they need to get a higher private label mix to margin increase, this is what you get. One less thing to draw people to the store. Kids love those fish departments; I used to ask to go to Petsmart just to look at the fish, many other kids the same.

Petsmart removed an aisle from the cat area and shortened various aisle lenghts in the dog area. They are reducing SKUs constantly. Of course they throw a few new items in but the net appears to be a SKU drop. They still have what I perceive to be a high amount of food mix for dogs and cats. Much higher mix than Petco, but that is because they still slot all of the conventional brands.

[ClownLoach]

They do seem to replenish the slow moving big ticket items. Again my objection to PetSmart right now in that category is the private equity driven push to convert to store brand products. It isn't as easy to come up with safe and effective chemicals as it might be for a store brand dog food. The reputable vendors they kicked out had proprietary and patented products that are tested to the equivalent of pharmaceuticals (independent lab testing and such). The same for foods for pretty much anything besides dogs, cats and birds. The rest of their assortment is just odd as the higher end products aren't compatible with anything else they sell. It's just a category that is adrift and not being well taken care of but in a company the size of PetSmart that could be a billion dollar segment of the business that they're throwing away (and it's a category that is known to have heavy markups not to mention that if you sell majority fish that can be captive bred you literally can make your own near free product at your facilities). I am looking to adopt a very hard to find breed of cat that I have had before; I am curious as to what my experience will be in purchasing food and accessories for the cat once I get one. It seems the space dedicated to cats was also dramatically reduced at PetSmart. Really, all of their stores have reduced space but it's most obvious in the older prototypes that are nearing 30 years old - they removed nearly half of the gondolas on the back end and there's a 25-30 foot gap of empty floor between the back endcap and the wall.

Petsmart used to have a high volume equine category in some stores (Reno had it) with a lot of high dollar/high margin items. That entire area was removed from the store years ago. They walked from that. It wouldn't have worked at every store but in any given market there was probably one store where the concept would have worked. This was before stores like Cal Ranch, Big R, or Tractor Supply operated anywhere in the area. The only equine type stores were in hard to reach edges of town open limited hours/closed weekends.

Obviously whoever they had running the fish category previously who understood the business left/was laid off and the current category people are approaching it like a commodity category. Gee why is this category with "accessory items" so skewed toward name brands vs. the other accessory categories in the store? They probably think chemicals are an "accessory item" like a toy or a bowl. So they think they have a big margin opportunity. It is too bad because they have nice big stores and the fish category could have been something to build. But it also takes labor to run that category properly which in my view they haven't properly allocated in years. So when store operations doesn't want to put the labor needed into the department and the buyers/category managers don't understand the category and think they need to get a higher private label mix to margin increase, this is what you get. One less thing to draw people to the store. Kids love those fish departments; I used to ask to go to Petsmart just to look at the fish, many other kids the same.

Petsmart removed an aisle from the cat area and shortened various aisle lenghts in the dog area. They are reducing SKUs constantly. Of course they throw a few new items in but the net appears to be a SKU drop. They still have what I perceive to be a high amount of food mix for dogs and cats. Much higher mix than Petco, but that is because they still slot all of the conventional brands.

I will say that PetSmart must have very strong deals with some of the conventional brands. A couple of years ago when there were cat food shortages the conventional canned foods that were out of stock at Walmart, Target and the supermarkets were fully available in bulk at PetSmart.