Online pet supply sales are pawspurous with 55 percent growth

National Pet Day is here, and Slice Intelligence is participating in the holiday by looking at the ruff trends in online spending on pet supplies. Slice Intelligence previously reported that pet food is the main driver of online sales for the entire pet category, but spend on everything from pet toys to collars and leashes also continues to grow. Overall, spending on pet supplies increased 55 percent in 2016 relative to the previous year.

The growth in the category is benefiting a very competitive set of pet food merchants. In general, pet owners are purchasing healthy pet food brands for their furry friends online. Blue Buffalo is the market leader, capturing nine percent of all pet food dollars. Wellness and Royal Canin round out the second and third slots. All three of these brands are considered healthy, premium pet food brands.

While Blue Buffalo is making the most money, Purina Pro Plan is the fastest growing pet food brand. Online sales of Purina Pro Plan have increased by 400 percent since 2014. Still, Blue Buffalo's growth isn't in the doghouse by any means, as its sales have increased by 250 percent in the last two years.

When we analyze how often online buyers ordered pet food, and what they spent per order, data shows pet lovers can't get enough of Hills. In 2016, Hill's Prescription Diet pet food buyers made four orders, on average, and spent ruff-ly 60 dollars per order. This compares to the average of 2.4 orders per brand in 2016.

With a panel of over 4.7 million online shoppers, Slice Intelligence gives the most detailed, and accurate digital commerce data available, and is reported daily.

Slice Intelligence is the only service to measure digital commerce directly from the consumer, across all retailers, at the item level, and over time. Our retailer-independent methodology precisely measures commerce as it happens. By extracting detailed information from hundreds of millions of aggregated and anonymized e-receipts, Slice can map the entire Purchase Graph, connecting each and every consumer to all their purchases.

Slice gets its data from e-receipts – not a browser, app or software installed by the end-user – so its measurement reflects comprehensive shopping behavior across multiple devices, over time which are key in an increasingly omnichannel retail world. Slice Intelligence is the exclusive e-commerce data provider for the NPD’s Checkout Tracking e-commerce service.