Pet owners revel in putting on the dog

Online pet shops are doing very well, judging by the millions of people who click on to the websites every week, writes Karlin Lillington

Would you point and click your way to a dog collar, a lead, a feeding bowl, or a bag of catfood? Millions do every week. Against gloomy post- dotcom-era expectations, online pet shops are doing very well, going by the burgeoning number and the enthusiasm of those who run them.

Consider Doctors Foster and Smith - www.drsfostersmith.com - one of the biggest and oldest online pet supply stores. Begun as a Wisconsin-based catalogue company in the 1980s, the three founder vets launched a website in the late 1990s that receives one million visitors a month and generates about $125 million (€96.5 million) annually, 57 per cent of the company's revenue.

One of the most notorious failures of the dotcom era was Pets.com, which launched on the markets at $11 a share and liquidated nine months later at 19 cents a share. The company's well-known television advert mascot, a sock puppet dog, now flogs business for an auto lending company.

Roll on 2007, and the now-maturing online pet sector is doing very well online. Americans spent $36 billion on their animals in 2005, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association - more than they spend on shoes, sweets, sporting goods or toys - so it's easy to see the e-commerce opportunity.

No surprise then that the US has hundreds of sites ranging from warehouse stores like Petedge.com to large niche-interest sites like Dogwise.com and small boutiques such as New York City doggie bling haven Trixieandpeanut.com. A $119 cashmere sweater for Sparky, anyone?

Ireland has its own small but growing number of online pet supply shops, often with a specific focus. Claire Lanigan, who runs her online pet boutique, Mollys.ie, from Greystones, aims at cute and affordable boutique items for dogs and cats, while Lyndsey Kenny offers a broad range of common to unique items for all types of pets - fish to dogs, rabbits to cats - on Pet-bliss.ie and Poshpaws.ie.

Professional dog trainers Lisa Whelan and Tara Choules of training company Dog Training Ireland and online shop Dogtrainingireland.ie/shop in Dublin specialise in dogs, especially in hard- to-find training items and books.

Far from being frivolous, online shopping is a boon to the many full-time working homes with little chance to get to the local pet shop, notes Kenny.

But it's the uniqueness of their stock that really draws their buyers, say all the women. "You go into Irish pet shops and everything is the same, collars and leads, the same plain jackets," says Lanigan.

Speciality items like doggie T-shirts and clothes, unusual cat and dog toys and treats, designer doggie beds and bling silver and diamante collars all readily found a market with online buyers who had a hard time finding anything similar in the local pet shop.

Whelan says she and Choules began to think about opening an online shop because they had issues with the correction-based training items sold in Irish stores, like choke chains and prong collars. They don't allow such items in their motivation and rewards-based classes in St Margarets.

"But we were recommending things that people couldn't find in Ireland," she says, noting in particular the SENSE-ible walking harness from the US. Out of frustration came opportunity - they now have the sole licence to sell many items in Ireland and are looking at wholesale opportunities.

They also offer hard-to-find training DVDs and books, brightly-coloured Fatboy pet beds from the Netherlands, and basic products like bowls, leads and brushes.

Lanigan set up Mollys.ie last April and says it's sometimes difficult to guess what Irish buyers will go for. She went over to New York for Pet Fashion Week ("All fun, not serious, and all dog lovers") but adds: "You do have to translate for the Irish market. Things that sell well in the US won't sell here - like dog strollers and fancy carrier bags."

Yet one item that has sold very well on Mollys.ie is a doggie bathrobe. "I just got it as a talking point for the website and because it was cute and you'd think it is ridiculous, but they are really useful. People buy one for home and one for the car for coming back from wet walks."

On the other hand, monogrammed collars and leads with slide-on letters feature beautiful workmanship but people can't see this on a website, and thus they don't sell as well as she'd predicted. When she holds customer evenings and people see them up close, they sell better than anything else she brings, she says.

Kenny has found that people go for the oddest things if they aren't available elsewhere - turtle toys, for example - but also has found good markets for items she initially got just as a special request item, like ramps for dogs. "No one carries them and they are great for older or small dogs."

Like some of the US online retailers, she also offers bulk discounts for small items like rawhide bones.

She agrees that finding the right products can be difficult even for a broad-based general store such as Pet-bliss.ie. "It's still a case of potluck. When you're trying to create a market in a country where there isn't one, you can't go by what other people or market research elsewhere says."

The women - all of whom own several dogs, many of them rescue dogs - self-funded their online stores and have found that setting up an online shop quickly brought other business opportunities.

Both Kenny and Lanigan started their shops as part-time ventures that have become full- time businesses in their own right. Kenny wholesales supplies to bricks-and-mortar stores as well as running Pet-Bliss.ie and sister boutique site Poshpaws.ie with three employees. From this summer, she will offer her own brand of items and is seeking venture investment to start manufacturing toys and other items.

Lanigan, who also works in radio and deejays in clubs, has had such success with online Mollys that she looking for a site for an initial bricks-and-mortar store in Dublin, and hopes to expand to four stores around the State. She has brought on board a private investor.

Whelan says their online store was self-funded though she and Choules took out loans to fund the launch of their training centre last year, when both left nine-to- five jobs to start their own dog- training business.

All say they can see nothing but growth for their sites - and in some cases, can't even keep up with demand for stock. So if you are thinking of that doggie bathrobe - get your order in now.