Durable Dog and Cat Petcare Products in the U.S.

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Durable Dog and Cat Petcare Products in the U.S.

Style, safety, durability, convenience, automation. Again and again responses to Packaged Facts proprietary pet owner surveys home in on what today’s pet owners are looking for in the durable pet products they purchase. As with human fare, many of the newer pet products promise convenience via high-tech features and automation, from self-cleaning litter boxes to automated feeders and waterers to smart collars parlaying Bluetooth technology and monitoring capabilities. Meet these demands—and parlay in a human cross-over trend or brand for good measure—and marketers and retailers are well on their way to striking at the nerve center of what pet owners want and need to take quintessential care of their furry family members and lighten the pet care load. In a nutshell, it’s about function and fashion, and, more often than not, appealing to the sensibilities of pet owner at least as much as pet. What’s more, with more and more pet owners treating their pets as surrogate kids, winning items are increasingly aspirational—those helping pet owners fulfill not just the needs of the pet but their own, physical and emotional.

Focusing on product innovation and consumer preferences, Durable Dog and Cat Petcare Products in the U.S. breaks out this $3.7 billion at retail and still counting market into seven categories:

• Toys, including cat scratchers and play furniture, where we’re seeing products adopting human forms, interactive/training toys, self-entertaining toys, revamped plushes, natural/eco-friendly options, and high-tech features.
• Beds, where durability, ease of cleaning, and comfort combine with trends including innovative designs (think raised edges and tenting), temperature control, portability/travel, fashion/humanization, and natural/eco-friendly.
• Carriers, crates, and housing, a category in which travel friendliness cannot be overestimated, along with fashion and style, with many pet owners seeking out items that serve as a fashion accessory and/or complete their home décor.
• Collars, harnesses, leashes (including training products), where pet owners’ interest in product quality and safety are driving the proliferation of items designed to protect pets and their people from injury while making walking ever more convenient and stylish.
• Bowls, feeders, waterers (manual and automatic) including food storage, where new products are alleviating neck strain, improving digestion, and maximizing comfort and convenience while adding a stylish look to pet owners’ homes.
• Apparel/fashion accessories, a category previously seasonal in nature is now offering year-round options including a lot more functional gear.
• Litter boxes and accessories including scoops, mats, waste disposal systems, and litter additives (building on the coverage in Packaged Facts’ May 2016 Pet Litter, Clean-Up, and Odor-Control Products: U.S. Market Trends report), where performance and convenience are the watchwords and automation and more attractive designs are coming on strong.

Report Scope & Methodology

Durable Dog and Cat Petcare Products in the U.S.—a first edition report—quantifies the market as a whole as well as category by category, calculating historical compound annual growth rates for 2011 vs. 2016 and projected growth rates for 2016 vs. 2021. Through custom surveying in Packaged Facts’ own National Pet Owner Surveys, is cuts to the core of consumer preferences in each category by compiling responses to questions including “what were the most important characteristics to choosing the product purchased,” “Did the product have any innovative features which impressed you?,” and “Did the product you purchased lack any features you were looking for or would like to see available?” Inclusive of dozens of product Illustrations, it focuses particularly on trends in marketing and new product development while also identifying major players in the market overall and at the category level. Additional data sources include IRI marketer/brand sales data for mass-market channels and Simmons data profiling trends in pet ownership and purchasing attitudes and product preferences, including demographic trends down to the category level.