Recent Articles from Dan Calabrese
There’s Value in a Retailer-Veterinarian Relationship
You know you watch it; my wife never misses an episode. Everyone loves “The Incredible Dr. Pol,” and it’s impossible not to. The man is 75 years old, and he ventures into cow stables, takes off his shirt and pulls out stuck calves with freaking chains. Then, he calmly ventures back to his clinic and […]
Retailers Should Take Notice of Millennials’ Love for Their Pets
Maybe it was when the term “fur babies” arrived on Earth. Pet lovers have always loved their pets—that’s a tautology, you understand— but it’s probably fair to say that millennials have in many ways taken that love to a whole new level. Maybe it’s the fact that they marry later or tend to show less […]
The Importance of Hemp Safety Knowledge
The last thing you need as a pet retailer is to unknowingly sell someone a product that harms their pet. That seems so obvious it shouldn’t even need to be stated, but we’re living in an age when people can’t seem to agree with each other about the basic effects of chemicals that have been […]
Insurance Options: Know Your Financial Risks
Every retailer has to protect themselves against risk. You surely knew that before you opened your store. But most retailers have little or no inventory that’s actually alive, and as such has the capacity to suffer, or the potential to be injured or killed. If you sell plates and some of them get broken, you […]
Address Critical Reviews in Polite, Productive Manner
I understand your horror; it’s not entirely irrational. You work hard every day to take good care of your customers and their pets—to have what they need in stock, to help them find what they’re looking for, to answer questions, to keep the store clean, to treat them with respect. All of it. You feel […]
Working Together: The Retailer-Distributor Partnership
Your distributors are there to help you succeed as a pet retailer. It might not always seem that way when you’re haggling over invoices, fretting delivery schedules or wondering about product availability, but they need you to do well and you need them to do well. And in most cases, a retailer and a distributor […]
Stars, Stripes and Sales: Strategy Matters When Selling ‘Made in USA’
Most consumers, if you asked them in the abstract, would probably tell you they prefer to buy made-in-America products, all things being equal. That doesn’t mean it’s at the top of their minds when they’re shopping or that they make the effort on their own to find out where things come from before they put […]
Steps Retailers Can Take to Have an Impact on the Environment
Maybe you’re concerned about reducing your carbon footprint. Maybe you just want to reduce the amount of physical clutter you’re generating. Maybe you want to kill two birds with one stone by reducing paperwork while creating new ways to push specials to your customers. I don’t judge motives. But I do know that you can […]
Think Local When Making an Impact on the Community, Real Local
There’s an irony to the expression, “Think globally, act locally.” The irony is this: The “act locally” part is supposed to make the concept achievable for an ordinary individual or business owner. You don’t try to change the world. You just do your part by focusing on what you can do in your own backyard. […]
Retailers, Be Careful Borrowing
If you’re planning to expand the physical space of your pet retailer and you need capital to do it, a Small Business Association (SBA) loan is an obvious thing that comes to mind. I know about this; I got an SBA loan once. I owned a small business, and I needed the capital—or at least […]
Put a Face to the Name
There’s nothing wrong with getting your name and logo out there. It’s certainly not a negative, and it doesn’t hurt when you can take advantage of a sponsorship and get yourself associated with a positive and/or popular cause in the community. That’s why you see so many corporate logos associated with the “run for the […]
Marketing to Millennials: Knowing Your Customers
I’m 50. So if you’re seeking wisdom about marketing to millennials, keep in mind that you’re asking a guy old enough to be their dad. Then again, if you ask some millennials, also known as Generation Y, they can tell you what they like and what they want, but they can’t necessarily tell you how […]