Pet Shop Purchases

In the last year, several pet products retailers have acquired (or, in some cases, been acquired by) other pet-focused companies, including e-commerce specialists, manufacturers, service providers, and competitive store chains:

• Regional retailer Chuck & Don’s purchased e-commerce and home delivery service Fetch (not to be confused with pet products licensee Fetch…for Pets!).
• Phillips Feed Service, a distributor of pet food and supplies to independent retailers, assumed control of e-tailer PetFlow and its parent Omnipet.
• PetSmart bought Chewy, an online retailer, which will continue to operate mostly independently for now.
• Petco took over PetCoach, a website and app that offers consumers advice from veterinarians on pet care and ownership.
• Pet Valu and Pet Supermarket merged to form a new company, Pet Retail Brands, which oversees 930 stores under the two nameplates.
• Regional chain Kriser’s Natural Pet acquired a smaller natural products chain, Wylie Wagg for Pets.

These deals, many of which have occurred in the past few months, are intended to help the acquiring chains grow and/or diversify. They mirror the merger activity that has been ongoing of late in other sectors of the pet products industry, including among manufacturers and distributors.

Consolidation is always a concern for licensors and licensees selling to national and regional chains such as these. But, in this case, it certainly does not seem to have put a damper on the ongoing interest in pet products licensing, with the pace of deal-making not slowing down.

Some of the diverse agreements that have been forged during the period of the acquisitions listed above include Disney and Marvel with Sentiments, Grumpy Cat and Ellen DeGeneres with PetSmart, Oh Joy!’s expansion into the category with Target, Boo the World’s Cutest Dog with Jakks, Energizer and Garfield with International Pet Group, and WWE with Petmate.

A reminder: Raugust Communications’ free e-newsletter for this month will be distributed tomorrow (July 18, 2017). Topics include a discussion of retro licensing, especially with regard to its role in IP protection, and a snapshot of some research about licensing in the toy industry. If you are not already a subscriber, you can sign up here.