PetSmart Operations

[Alpha8472]

I went to a local PetSmart and the Banfield Pet Hospital was closed. It seems like it has been closed for a while, but the empty spot was used as junk storage. It looked really unprofessional. Many PetSmarts have lost their pet hospitals. The store seems to be doing very poorly now. There is so little customer traffic compared to before. The pet hospital really brought in customers, but now it seems really dead. The pet adoption area with glass windows was abandoned as well. It looks like it closed during COVID and never reopened. There were signs saying that COVID ended all pet adoptions at the store.

The entire store was in a sad state. It looked as if it had not been remodeled or updated in years. The was only one visible employee in the entire store. He had to cashier, clean up spills, and help with customer questions. There was no fish person or anyone else to help in the entire store. There were dead fish in the fish tanks and it was just disturbing and gross. If you brought kids here, they would be scared.

Meanwhile Banfield has bought tons of independent pet hospitals all over the San Francisco Bay Area in the past couple of years. It seems like practically every other city has one now, and PetSmart is losing out on all that customer traffic.

[storewanderer]

How about the grooming service? Or the pet training service?

Petsmart got on a path quite a few years ago now where they pushed hard on non-retail services like grooming or pet training. It got to the point that store managers who were growing retail sales volumes but had lousy grooming and pet training department performance were basically run off.

The Reno (S. Virginia) Petsmart used to have a corner of the store with a large Equine-related department 15-20 years ago, with a different name. The name escapes me. The department seemed to do some business and the items were high dollar. At some point that department was removed. The Banfield in that store closed many years ago however a couple of new Petsmart Stores that opened later elsewhere in town did open with Banfield departments.

I sometimes go into the Petsmart in Sparks. It is the only one I've been in this year probably. Banfield is open there and very busy. Pet adoptions never re-started. When I went in around Christmas they had one cashier and 10+ customers in line and the poor assistant manager was sitting in front of the closed pet adoption space dressed up as Santa for "bring your pet in for a photo with Santa" day. Nobody was interested and the guy looked beyond bored. Meanwhile the customers in the long line up front looked pretty impatient. A few months ago I went in, and the cat food area was mostly empty like every other retailer, but they had some multi packs. They had signs posted saying if you break open the multi packs to get single cans out, it is considered shoplifting, and they will call the police. What the...

[veteran+]

Banfield is getting so big but is such a scam.

Personal experience with them. All about and not necessarily about your beloved pet.

[mbz321]

I haven't noticed any issues with my local PetSmart's. Cat adoptions are still set up and the stores are always busy. Most of the Petco locations in my area have closed and the remaining ones are few and far between. Besides some more higher end boutique pet stores and a few scattered 'Pet Supplies Plus' franchises, there really isn't a lot of B&M competition besides the big box stores. Good riddance to their Banfield partnership though...from what I hear they are like the 'McDonald's' of vets. (And with cat food shortages still ongoing, Petsmart seems to be the only place that sometimes has stock. Combined with their app coupons from playing their 'treat trail' game, it makes the prices lower than elsewhere).

[Alpha8472]

The Pet Hotel, dog grooming, and dog training were closed and empty when I went there on the weekend. It looked like there were few people who use those services.

Maybe they have some customers for those services on weekdays, but the weekends were not busy at all.

Why is there a cat food shortage? Walmart seems decently stocked.

[jamcool]

Shortage of aluminum cans for cat food, ingredient shortages.

[HCal]

Banfield is getting so big but is such a scam.

Personal experience with them. All about and not necessarily about your beloved pet.

Banfield is owned by Mars, which makes candy for humans (3 Musketeers, M&M's, Snickers and Twix, among others) and food for pets (Pedigree, Iams, Royal Canine, etc.)

They have a financial incentive to feed your pets unhealthy food so you run up those vet bills.

[arizonaguy]

Banfield is getting so big but is such a scam.

Personal experience with them. All about and not necessarily about your beloved pet.

My wife used to be a veterinarian for Banfield. They actually pay better than most veterinary jobs but the expectations and experience that they put their employees through is beyond awful.

Banfield got spooked by Petsmart when Petsmart closed its store (where my wife worked) near the Desert Sky Mall in Phoenix. Apparently it was the first Petsmart to close with a Banfield hospital and Banfield wanted more control over its locations in case Petsmart closed more stores (as Banfield was profitable even though Petsmart wasn't).

[norcalriteaidclerk]

Banfield is getting so big but is such a scam.

Personal experience with them. All about and not necessarily about your beloved pet.

My wife used to be a veterinarian for Banfield. They actually pay better than most veterinary jobs but the expectations and experience that they put their employees through is beyond awful.

Banfield got spooked by Petsmart when Petsmart closed its store (where my wife worked) near the Desert Sky Mall in Phoenix. Apparently it was the first Petsmart to close with a Banfield hospital and Banfield wanted more control over its locations in case Petsmart closed more stores (as Banfield was profitable even though Petsmart wasn't).

Even in Sacramento, Banfield is going to standalones independent of PetSmart.In my CDP/zipcode Banfield has a location independent of PetSmart (though a subdivision of an old blockbuster and in a center shared with Safeway and Rite Aid) though attributable to the fact that PetSmart is a smaller formatted location in a converted financial institution building(in the parking lot of a home Depot).I don't live far from either though I live slightly closer to the standalone Banfield.

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[Brian Lutz]

Our cats are on Banfield wellness plans, and generally the ones here have been reasonable to deal with, but the main issue we've had with them is that during COVID a lot of the locations seemed to have high turnover and have become rather short staffed, making it difficult to get appointments at times.