Analysis Of Pet Lovers Marketing Essay

This report is to examine the effectiveness of the marketing strategies that allow them to widely expand their business around Singapore and Malaysia. And also examine how they react to their competitors.

What is Pet Lovers Centre?

Pet Lovers Centre (PLC) is Singapore’s biggest pet retail and service chain. It was open as a home hobby business in 1973. In 1995, the second generation of Ng family took over, and the business grew rapidly as they have expand their business not only Singapore and also Malaysia. PLC is well known for their ability to offer its customer “widest and freshest range, coupled with prompt and warm service”. They are the only pet chain being awarded for the “Trust SG certification for the year” and also an Associate member of Worldwide Pet Industry Association. In 2008, it became a franchise-able brand.

Background

Background of Pet Lovers Centre

In 1973, the two brothers, David Ng and Robert Ng, have the same passion for pets because they were brought up in a farm with all kinds of pets and animals. At the point of time, the pet ownership was not widespread as compare to today, pet shop hardly can be seen on the street, as leftover food were consider proper meal for pets. After that, the two brothers shared a common dream to open Singapore’s first shop that offered everything a pet should need. It started off with the wholesaling and after that change to retailing as the demand for pet related retail service was expand and there were lack of choice in the market. And this switching of business was a success.

After much time and money being invested, they finally open their first shop at Shaw Centre along Scotts Road. They also decide to start their own Research & Development. Such as, “turning car cushions into cat basket, household carpet into scratch pad for cats”. This innovation allow the shop to be first in import dry dog food, first to sell anti flea and tick shampoo, first to sell nutritional supplement for pets and first to supply dry food to supply to Singapore’s police and army dog units.

Mission and Core Values

Pet Lovers Centre mission is to provide their quality care to their customer by showing their care and concern to their customer needs and also good accessibility. Pet Lovers Centre core values are Integrity, professionalism, effectiveness, teamwork, and service. The needs having this core values is to ensure that the staff being professional in their job, do their part and being honest, courteous, care and concern to their customer. “PLC is where pet lovers can shop with total confidence and peace of mind.” They ensure they did provide quality services and share their knowledge about pet and product to their customer.

Accolades

Pet lovers centre has received the Singapore Creative Circle Bronze award of the year of 2001, Retail Courtesy Gold Award of the year of 2002, Excellent Service Award of the year of 2002, Best Pet Shop Award 2004 & 2005, Largest Pet Store in Malaysia Book of Records 2003, Clubpets Readers Choice award of the year of 2003 to 2006, Singapore Prestige Brand Award in 2008, Trust SG Certification for the year of 2006 -2008 and Second Runner Up, Global Pets Forum Award 2010.

Pet Lover Foundation

Pet Lovers Centre has always giving charities to those animals. And last years, the foundation came out with a tagline”Pets, people and out planet” to animals. They donate food for animal shelter in Singapore. The foundation work with the animal shelters such as Noah’s Ark, SPCA and ASD. And last year when economic outlook is bleak, they organise “Dog Food Drive”. They actually collected over 2000kg of dog food for SPCA and Noah’s Ark. And recently, they organise and charity preview of the movie, “Hachiko – A dog’s story”, and raised sixteen thousand dollars for the ASD and Noah’s Ark. Currently, they are working on an eco project and working with Salvation Army to help the animal shelter. Furthermore, their stores had these house brand products “Burp!” and “Trustie” and their exclusive imports products, the sales of the products will be donate to Pet lovers foundation’s beneficiaries.

Services

Location of Stores

Pet lovers Centre has expand their business to Malaysia and Singapore. There are 32 stores in Singapore and 8 stores in Malaysia. In Singapore, the stores are located near the MRT station or shopping malls. This will allow customer to access to the destination easily. For example: VivoCity, Singapore’s largest retail and lifestyle destination, customer can actually take bus, MRT, Taxi or cars to the shopping mall. And they can even shop around the shopping mall after they have shop at the Pet Lovers Centre. So this allow the customer not only able to purchase their pet stuff, they also could purchase other things from other shops. And they won’t feel that trip was being wasted to travel down.

Grooming Centre

In Singapore, there are 5 Pet Lovers Centre’s outlet have the grooming facilities. They could bring their pets to the EastPoint mall, Holland village, Serangoon Gardens, Toa Payoh Central or Vivocity for hair grooming. And those groomers are high level of expertise proficiency and professionalism as they are being trained by the PLC Animal Arts Academy. They teach skills in a progressive manner which helps them to build up the foundation, learning basic skills of handling and grooming pets, gaining new techniques as they learn advance skills. Lately, they provide new services to the pet owner. It is the “just a bath” for dogs only. This is to allow the owners have an alternative choice to actually bring their pets for a shower rather than doing it themselves.

Veterinary Clinics

There are veterinary Clinics located at Vivocity and Holland Village. They also came out with a system for the owner to ask for an advice, opinion or suggestion through online. So owner can actually get into their website and consult the veterinary through online before bringing their pet to a vet. And they will reply the post as soon as possible to solve owner’s problem. This is to allow the owner get an idea whether their pets are behaving normally or it does really need a medical care. So this enables owners to save consultation cost if their pet were perfectly alright.

Dog Training

PLC does have dog training at their stores. They work together with the Waggie’s dog training school, Doggie Advance dog training school and Dog Listener consultancy. They would schedule their class at different venue of Singapore. And owners are given a choice to choose which classes they would like their dog to go for training. And the venue usually will be at Vivo city 3rd floor. Another way owner could do is consult the trainers through online on basic training. This would allow them to have better advice, opinion and suggestion from the trainer. So instead of bring dogs to training school, they could actually train their dogs themselves.

Home delivery

They also provide home delivery. So owner could purchase bulky item such as dog food, dog cage and more. Or owner could also online order goods. If goods are being purchase above $50, there is free of charge for delivery. The delivery takes 3 to 4 working days to process. There is a call receive from their Customer Service Officer to confirm the orders and time of delivery. So when goods arrive, goods can be exchanges within 7 working days from the date of purchase.

Marketing Strategies

Membership Card

They also provide membership card for those pet lovers to get benefit. For example, 15% discount on birthday month, 5% discount on regular-priced product, earns loyalty point to redeem items. To apply the free membership card, customer has to purchase above $100 in a single receipt. If not, customer has to pay $5 for application fees for minimum purchase of $50 single receipts or accumulated receipts in 4 weeks. And this membership could last for one year, subsequent year renewal of membership fees will be $2. Customer could check their point and redeem item through their website. With this membership, members will tend to visit their stores and purchase more items from them, so that they could accumulate point. With the point, members could actually redeem pet’s food, pet’s shampoo, pet’s remedy or supplement, accessories and gift vouchers.

Pricing

The price of the products was set at a reasonable and affordable price. And they do have brand of product that could not found in other pet stores. Even though there are some product that are sold higher price than other pet stores, but customer still choose to buy their product as the quality and service was that. They are willing to pay higher price as they wish to receive good quality of food.

S.W.O.T analysis

Strength

They provide the customer their best and warm service with a smile of it. This shows that they valued each of their customers. They willingly to help customers and solved their problem. They want to gain the trust from the customer. So they allow exchange of products within 7 days. This will allow customer to have good impress of their business. They will constantly bringing latest product for customer. This is to prevent them from selling expired food and more variety to choose. They not only target people around town or city, they also target people who live at HDB. This allows them to people to travel to their stores conveniently. Every month, they do have promotion item, this is to attract more customer to buy their product.

Weakness

They have quite limited types of products compare to other pet shop. And not every store has the same products. As some of the shop size is small, so they could not actually bring in many different types of products. So, most of products will be available at the pet safari mega stores only.

Opportunities

Service and Quality of the product that Pet Lover Centre provides to each of their customer are useful. This would enable the customer have trust in their product and willing to visit the stores again. And this enables the customer to recommend more pet lovers to drop by their stores. They do organise outdoor event and pet contest. This also helps to promote responsible pet ownerships and also allow owner and pets to enjoy and have fun. And enable customer to know that all this event are actually organize by the Pet Lovers Centre. And also hamster, dog, guinea pig, rabbit, hermit crab and terrapin are available in their stores. So customers have another choice to choose whether they would want to buy it from their stores or other pet stores.

Threats

There are a lot of pet shops in Singapore. They are actually Pet Lovers competitor. It is because they do sell pet products, and their products are being sold at lower price. And they do have their own home brand product. So they might lose out with customer because of that. As most of the people would not wish to pay too much on products, all they want is their pet eating healthy food.

Survey

Survey Question

Do you own any pet at home?

Yes

No

If yes, please proceed to Q2 – Q6,

Do you purchase anything from Pet Lover Centre?

Yes

No

Are you aware that they do have Pet Lover Centre membership benefit

Yes

No

How do you find their service?

Very satisfied

Satisfied

Average

Not satisfied

How do you find their quality of the product?

Very satisfied

Satisfied

Average

Not satisfied

Is the price of the product reasonable?

Very reasonable

Reasonable

Expensive

Very expensive

If no, please proceed to Q7 & Q8

Would you like to purchase any pet from Pet Lover Centre, if you want to own a pet?

Yes

No

Pet Lover Centre does organize charity drive to help animal shelter such as SPCA, Noah’s Ark and ASD. If you pass by their stores, are you willing to donate to those animals?

Yes

No

Survey Result

From the survey, there are quite a number of people purchase things from the Pet lovers centre. And they find that the quality of the product and their service was above average. It means that their products are reliable, trustable so the customer willing to visit their shop again. The price of the product was quite reasonable. Most of the people did apply for their membership card to gain benefit for themselves. There are people who are willing to donate to animal shelter. So if Pet lovers Centre organize another charity drive, they have to create awareness for the people, this enable more people to donate to those animal shelter, since many people willing to donate money to them too.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Pet Lovers Centre is recognizing in pet industry all around Singapore. Pets Lovers Centre has being showing their best in providing good service and good quality products with affordable price for their customer to purchase it. And thus, it enables them to expand their business from Singapore to Malaysia. And even during economic slowdown, they were not affected and yet raising fund for the animal shelter. They have their own strategies and method to encounter their competitors. They always keep the member updated with the latest information or promotion through email, E-zine or even the most popular social network, Facebook. This enables the member to visit to Pet Lovers Centre more often. This allow Pet Lovers Centre to be success and able to expand their business rapidly throughout the island.

I would like to analysis about this company because I always been to all the pet shop, and I realise that their store was located almost everywhere, and whenever I have enquires about those product, they are willing to explain and recommend product for me to try on to my pet. As compare to other pet shop, their standard of services wasn’t there and the price of the product was quite expensive.

So after analysing this company, I have learnt that in order to expand the business, I have to identify and capture the target group of customer and cater to their needs and wants of the customer. Providing good service and quality will gain the trust from the customer.