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High-end pet toys catch on with consumers.
By Meghan E. Murphy
The reign of squeaky newspapers and fuzzy mice over the shelves of pet stores is officially over. Today, pet toys range from robotic to electronic to organic, and customers who will pay a higher price for guaranteed fun drive the ever-evolving market.
The booming pet industry continues to experience a shift from mostly low-priced toys to the now more common high-ticket items. And consumers are increasingly seeking quality and safety in the products they purchase for their pets. They seem to understand that innovative ideas and stronger materials often come with a higher price tag.
Experts say that with that tide change comes opportunity for the independent retailer. With high-end toys, smaller retailers can set themselves apart with unusual products, develop reputations for quality and offer higher profit margins with fewer sales.
The biggest surprise for retailers in the toy business is how much cat owners are willing to shell out for a good product.
Jim Boelke, owner of the toy company Cat Dancer, says he has been through two price evolutions of the cat toy market in the 25 years since he started his business. When his company introduced its line of cat wands two decades ago, most pet owners were purchasing four toy mice for a dollar. His $2 toy had its skeptics.
“I think we’ve trained cat lovers in pet stores not to spend very much,” he says.
But as more high-end toys hit the shelves, customers show that you can at least teach an old human new tricks. Cat toys have made the leap to the more-than-$20 market, and it appears customers are jumping for it.
Paul Comerford, owner of Panic Mouse Inc. in Temecula, Calif., has been selling a number of electronic toys for cats for about five years. The entrepreneur says it was an uphill battle to convince retailers that cat owners would pay more for toys. At first he had to offer his product on consignment to prove its veracity.
“It wasn’t that way in the beginning. It was very tough to get distributors or pet store owners to believe,” Comerford says. “People love their cats just as much as they love their dogs.”
He proved that high-end products can sell, and now has about half a million units under his belt, opening the door for other high-end cat toys.
Jennifer Ernst, manager of Dapper Dog in Bridgehampton, N.Y., has also seen that cat owners’ willingness to spend has been underestimated.
“Honestly, we have always said that cat people are cheap. But if you get a customer that will do somersaults for her cat, they’ll pretty much pay anything,” she says.
Comerford says one of the keys to convincing customers to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for toys is to carry a product that works.
His idea for the Panic Mouse came from many experiences brushing a busybody cat off his neighbor’s table at dinnertime. He began wondering why there were no toys to keep pets occupied when the owner was away or busy. His original toy, also called Panic Mouse, has spurred the invention of several others at his company, and is still one of the few robotic toys on the market.
Boelke describes a similar experience in developing Cat Dancer products, especially those that give the cat something to play with when the owner isn’t home, like the Mouse in the House toy, which features a mouse that moves around a track to entertain cats and even has a timer to activate when owners are away. He’s found that the higher price tag doesn’t scare away customers if you’re offering something unique that will entice their favorite felines.
“If you can bring new function to new products, people will pay a bit more for it,” he says.
Ernst, who sells to high-end customers vacationing in the Hamptons on Long Island, says she only chooses proven toys for her shelves. She relies on customer feedback and her own experience so that she can recommend every toy in her store to a cat or dog owner.
“People will come back because we put them on to such a great toy,” she says.
When it comes to dog products, she looks for those that stand up to roughhousing. While it’s more difficult to tell what’s going to work for finicky felines, she says she relies on time-tested products and doesn’t always go for the latest thing just because it has neat bells and whistles.
“A toy has to prove itself to us that it’s worth carrying,” she says.
Being able to test the toy and know it’s a winner with her own dogs has also been a key to sales for Ernst. She takes the product home to see if it can stand up to the abuse her own dogs can dish out, and if it does, she can confidently steer customers to a toy that will work for them.
“People come to us for advice,” she says. “I can guarantee this toy is going take the kind of abuse that dogs put out.”
Consumers today have a sensitive barometer for quality and safety, especially since the pet food recalls last year, says Anne Hossner, a sales manager for West Paw Design in Bozeman, Mont.
While the alarm started with food, the toy industry saw customers becoming more interested in the quality and origin of a product.
“Consumer awareness is at an all-time high,” she says.
Ernst says her customers often ask where toys are manufactured and seek out products that are well made. She also gets requests for organic and environmentally friendly products.
Customers understand that domestically made and eco-friendly toys cost more, Ernst says.
“I think when people connect that it’s good for the environment and it’s good for your pet, it’s a win-win,” she says.
Aside from developing a reputation for quality, the pet store owner can also offer a unique product by looking at high-end toys, Boelke says.
High-end pet toys are most often found in specialty boutiques and online. While Panic Mouse has been able to break the threshold and sell its products in the big-box stores, Boelke says that most high-end toys aren’t on the shelves of chains yet. This opens up the opportunity for smaller retailers to attract a niche market of big-spending customers with better-quality toys.
“There’s a boom in the market that the mainstream pet store isn’t servicing,” he says.
Boelke expects that within a few years, the big-box stores may catch on, so the time is now, he says, for the independent retailer to catch the wave of customers clamoring for new products.
“The industry as far as the major retailers are just now understanding that there is a demand for this,” Comerford says.
Jean Christensen of Cassie’s Closet in Ocala, Fla., says that pet owners seek her out for her line of cutesy couture toys. In the fashion world, names like Mark Jacobs, Vera Wang and Luis Vuitton are synonymous with high end. But in the pet world, it’s Bark Jacobs, Vera Wag and Chewy Vuitton.
She says her little dog shoe toys are a hot item in the store, even though they come with a higher price tag because of the designer name.
“It’s just a little shoe and people buy it even though it’s kind of pricey for a dog toy,” she says.
While one unique product will bring a customer in the door, Boelke says carrying an array of high-end goods can help a store establish itself as the place to go for shoppers with deeper pockets.
Despite her small space, Ernst says Dapper Dog has a surprising variety of toys. And shoppers keep coming back to discover what new, high-end products she can recommend. |