蘑菇AV

Walmart rolls out series of initiatives to attract customers to its stores and boost ecommerce business: The retailer is opening a cashierless Sam鈥檚 Club store, adding pet care centers, and automating more distribution centers.

General Mills offloaded its North American yogurt business to focus on higher-growth categories like snacks and pet food. Why is this happening? The Trump administration鈥檚 trade policies鈥攊ncluding steep tariffs鈥攈ave eaten into CPG companies鈥� margins.

Synchrony said the steep decline resulted from selling Pets Best Insurance Services in Q1 2024. Excluding the sale, net revenues were essentially flat, CFO Brian Wenzel said during the earnings call. Diving into card results: Synchrony cardholders鈥� consumer health declined across key metrics. Synchrony鈥檚 purchase volume dropped 4% YoY, versus 2% YoY growth a year ago.

In pet food, Tractor Supply announced in January that it was expanding the assortment of its premium 4health Shreds brand, after a popular product that grew 15 times the market average household penetration in three years. In 2024, Kroger also expanded its premium pet food offering, launching six new products. Department stores are looking to private label brands to help revive their fortunes.

This month alone, Amazon is running its (misnamed) Summer Beauty Event, Pet Day sale, and Gaming Week promotions. It also plans to double the length of Prime Day, which will give consumers more opportunities to find deals as well as generate more ad revenues. It鈥檚 squeezing as much revenue as it can from its ad business.

Magnite鈥檚 platform enables teams to independently build custom audiences using first-party Samsung Smart TV data layered with third-party segments like household income and pet ownership. The partnership has already proven profitable, with double-digit revenue growth reported by Samsung Ads via Magnite鈥檚 streaming SSP between 2023 and 2024.

Horizon Media鈥檚 2024 Subcultures Field Guide studied niche consumer groups that spanned from "Extreme Paw-rents,鈥� or those who spend a lot of time and money taking care of their pets, to 鈥淒ark Tourists鈥� who travel in search of ghost towns and haunted spaces. 85% of U.S. adults gravitate toward hobbies and passions that transcend age, according to Horizon Media. 69% of adults are more influenced to buy a

Shoppers are least likely to trade down in the baby, pet care, and beauty categories: On the surface that鈥檚 good news for Chewy and P&G, but consumers are cutting back in other ways.

On today's episode, in our "Retail Me This, Retail Me That" segment, we discuss how pet care is moving online, the best pet services retailers are offering, and how recession-proof the category is. Then, for "Pop-Up Rankings," we rank the top four loyalty drivers from pet retailers that other businesses can emulate. Join our analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts vice president of content Suzy Davidkhanian and director of Briefings Jeremy Goldman.

Inflation for pet food and services was over 10% in April, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the category has won a reputation of being somewhat recession-proof, thanks to its necessity for pet owners. 鈥淧eople will be spending more on the pets that they have already, despite the fact that it鈥檚 been a relatively inflation-wary populous,鈥� said our analyst Jeremy Goldman on a recent episode of our 鈥淏ehind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail鈥� podcast.

Walmart is opening a pet services center: The move positions the retailer to grab a share of some of the most lucrative areas of the pet industry: health and other services.

Consumers keep splurging on their pets: That鈥檚 why Amazon is hosting a pet sale and other companies are rolling out niche offerings ranging from stress-relief chews to an airline for dogs.

Pet sales are on the rise (thanks, in large part, to inflation). Consumers, who are increasingly shopping online, are seeking out premium health and wellness-focused products for the furry members of their family.

Inflation has hit pet owners hard: Petco and Chewy recognize that many of their customers are pulling back on discretionary spending, which could hinder growth in fiscal 2023.

The difficulties for them are the vast array of home layouts and obstacles that could get in robots鈥� way, like clutter and pets, per TechCrunch. Another potential obstacle? The price tag. Adcock said he believes the startup can get the price tag below $20,000, per TechCrunch.

But how do you incorporate brands that are outside of the pet industry into your content? Bryan Reisberg (13:23):. That's what we focus on most now is working with non-pet-endemic brands. We had a really long relationship with Dell. It was about an 18-month-long relationship, which I know seems very non-traditional. It was a leap for them, so good on them.

In a recent Tech Talk webinar, John Pawlowski, vice president of marketing at pet food company Heckova!, shared four steps to build a successful CPG brand and get it on to retail shelves, from identifying the opportunity for growth to finding the right retail partners.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss whether GenAI is just a solution in search of a problem to fix, how the video streaming world has shifted already this year, how significant of an ad battleground the back seat of a cab can be, how fast people need things delivered, what the most popular pets in America are, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Blake Droesch and vice presidents of content Suzy Davidkhanian and Paul Verna.

These brands, spanning various verticals such as beauty, household, pets, and accessories, have seen success with paid social advertising on platforms like Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Pinterest. The company鈥檚 ecommerce gains during the 2024 holiday season shows the effectiveness of its AI-driven ad platform in sectors beyond gaming, including fintech and retail.

They have sought to deepen their relationships with users by expanding into other lower-frequency categories鈥攖hink Instacart partnering with 1-800-Flowers or Pet Supplies Plus, for example. That strategy should provide non-endemic advertisers with greater opportunities to leverage those intermediaries鈥� audiences. Financial media networks see great potential and face great challenges.

Other retail includes categories that fall outside of those mentioned, such as mail-order/catalog, appliances, pet products, restaurants and bars, equipment and supplies, food delivery services, hobby items such as collectibles, musical instruments, wholesalers, and general merchandise. The retail industry will briefly slow ad spending in 2024.