Pets at Home this week said that about half of its online sales are now collected in store.
The multichannel pet supplies retailer-to-veterinary practice, a Top50 retailer in IRUK Top500 research, reported fast growth in the use of click and collect over its latest financial year. Where 40% of orders were collected in store at the beginning of the year, by year-end the proportion had risen by about 50%. The change, it said, was down to improvements both to the in-store collection service and to the product range.
The company said it had invested in a “seamless shopping strategy” over the year, through measures including optimising the website, upgrading systems, and expanding the teams delivering the plan. “This has resulted in good traffic growth to our website, enhanced conversion rates and an improved customer experience,” it said in its full-year results statement, out today.
Those results showed that in the 53 weeks to May 26, group revenue reached £793.2m, 6.7% more than at the same time last year. Pre-tax profits came in at £97.3m, up from a loss of £5.2m last time. The company now has 419 Pets at Home superstores and plans to open 15 to 20 more in the year to 2017. It trades online through petsathome.com.
A new VIP App is in its final stages of development. When it is launched, customers will be able to use it in place of their loyalty card, both for collecting points and redeeming offers.
Chief executive Ian Kellett said: “We have enjoyed 25 very successful years as a business and enter our 26th year confident in he future.” He added: “The pet market has proven over time to be more resilient than general retail so whilst consumer confidence may be more fragile, we believe our drive to become more specialist and most loved by customers will deliver further progress.”
