Like many eCommerce verticals in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pet food space is poised for even more growth going forward. According to a recent report from investment firm Capstone Headwaters, pet food and other pet products accounted for about 10% of all eCommerce sales in the second quarter of 2020. With total eCommerce sales reaching $211.5 billion in the US for that period, that’s a pretty significant sum.
“For a number of years, we have been covering the emergence of online retailers in the pet space. It started with their impact on the brick and mortar segment, both mom and pop as well as big box,” says Tom Elliott, managing director at Capstone Headwaters. “One of the driving factors behind the trend was the growth of millennial pet owners that were preconditioned to online shopping. The pandemic has taken this storyline and put it on steroids.”
If you’re looking to launch an online pet food retail business, it may be time to strike while the iron is hot. For many brands and online retailers, selecting the right eCommerce platform is the first challenge they face in getting their business off the ground. In this blog post, we’ll look at the premier eCommerce platforms available to online merchants and explain why they’re ideal for pet food retailers.
THE BEST ECOMMERCE PLATFORM FOR PET FOOD RETAILERS
In order to launch a successful pet food business, you’ll need an eCommerce platform that’s built to grow and scale with your business. Delivering an excellent customer experience is top of mind for all online retailers these days, so your eCommerce platform must integrate with all of your systems for fulfillment, customer service, marketing, and more.
BigCommerce and Shopify, the top cloud-based eCommerce platforms, boast some pretty impressive native functionality to help pet food retailers get up and running selling products online. Let’s take a look at what makes both BigCommerce and Shopify the ideal choices for pet food retailers.
POWERFUL APPS AND INTEGRATIONS
As pet food brands grow and scale, they often look for ways to get more from their eCommerce tech stacks. Thankfully, both BigCommerce and Shopify have substantial app marketplaces with powerful third-party plugins and tools that can help businesses drive efficiencies, deliver superior customer experiences, improve fulfillment strategies, and more. From marketing apps to customer service integrations, the BigCommerce and Shopify app marketplaces have it all.
With Shopify and BigCommerce’s extensive app offerings, your store has numerous options to improve its capabilities. As a certified partner to both platforms, Codal is here to help you learn more about its third-party offerings and how they can help you boost your online store’s performance.
ENGAGING THEMES
Both BigCommerce and Shopify software-as-as-service (SaaS) platforms boast impressive sets of themes to select to get your site up and running quickly. Deploy an engaging, user-friendly front end at launch with just a few clicks with BigCommerce’s theme marketplace and the Shopify theme collection. With numerous offerings from trusted partners—including some geared specifically towards animal and pet retailers—it’s easy to find the perfect theme for your digital storefront. Plus, with built-in HTML, CSS, and Javascript, themes can be fully customized to your exact specifications.
BUILT FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS
Many pet food brands and retailers have found success with a subscription-based business model. Consumer habits have shifted, with more and more shoppers looking for simple, hassle-free buying experiences. A subscription-based model means less friction for consumers, creating a more streamlined customer experience—and leading to more revenue for brands and retailers in turn.
If you’re looking to sell subscriptions to your customers, you’d be hard-pressed to find eCommerce solutions better suited to this model than BigCommerce and Shopify. Both platforms’ advanced payment solutions make it easy to offer subscriptions, recurring billing, and more. BigCommerce’s payment applications easily integrate with your online store with no coding necessary, and Shopify offers multiple apps designed specifically for subscriptions.
HEADLESS CAPABILITIES
A headless eCommerce architecture is perfect for companies seeking to gain a competitive edge with an integrated content and commerce environment that allows for extensive customization and an improved speed-to-market. In a headless eCommerce environment, the front end of a site is separated from its commerce back end. This separation allows merchants to be more flexible and dynamic in how they develop and deploy tailored content and brand experiences. This improves overall content management, UX, and SEO, helping to increase brand awareness and drive sales.
Going headless helps your eCommerce business to rapidly develop and deploy content without extensive back-end development work. BigCommerce and Shopify are premier choices for online retailers looking to embrace a headless setup. Their high-performance APIs, enterprise-grade security, simplicity, and scalability make them ideal for reaping the benefits of a headless approach to eCommerce.
LAUNCHING A SUPERIOR ECOMMERCE WEBSITE
Pet food retailers have unique challenges to launching a truly transformative eCommerce presence. As a certified partner to both BigCommerce and Shopify, Codal can help you create a well-rounded customer experience while getting the technology and tools you need to operate efficiently.
Codal’s eCommerce designers and developers are masters of their craft and can help you stand up the best eCommerce store that helps your business thrive. Interested in learning more about Codal’s BigCommerce and Shopify solutions? Get in touch today!
