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Bigger and Better

Pet Age Staff//March 13, 2013//

Bigger and Better

Pet Age Staff //March 13, 2013//

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Publisher’s letter as published in the March 3013 issue of Pet Age.

While I may work in the pet industry, no one knows our pets better than my wife. She is the one who feeds them, cleans their cages and shops for them. In fact, it’s a trend I’ve noticed all around my New Jersey town, as well as in other cities when I’m traveling.

In many cases women – single, in relationships or married – are the ones making the purchases for the pets of the family.

According to statistics from the American Pet Products Association, 76 percent of all pet shoppers are women. Even when you break it down by pet, women are always by far the primary shopper for pet products.

This is a trend that we, at Pet Age, could not ignore and we believe that store owners shouldn’t ignore either. So, we decided it was important to write a story about marketing and selling to women, which you can find on page 36. We hope it inspires new ideas for your marketing and selling strategies. Possibly even how to lay out your store differently to attract more female customers to your location.

On the Web Extra page of our website, you will find an article about the APPA Women’s Professional Network, a group devoted to helping women in the pet industry network with each other. In the article are instructions for both men and women on how to join the network. It also goes into the benefits of joining and why people should join.

As I mentioned before, my wife does the majority of shopping for our household, which has been extremely helpful these past few months, and I can’t thank her enough for it. Because of it, I have been able to really focus on Pet Age, its growth and building a strong team.

We hired a western states sales account executive a few months ago, and will be expanding our sales team soon.

In January, I attended the Pet Industry Distributors Association’s 2013 Management Conference in California, where I networked with various industry leaders, and showed off the new Pet Age, as well as talked about our digital products.

Speaking of digital, after just a few short months on Twitter, our handle was named a runner-up in the 2012 B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards in the B2B Publications category. The awards, in their fifth year, are given to qualified, nominated entries, and the judging is performed by a panel of experienced B2B veterans, with the focus solely on B2B, according to their website.

The award is a testament to how dedicated our staff is about providing pet industry news and information across all publishing platforms, including digital and social.

Also, on a personal note, I was named number three on the Pet Product News International’s 25 to Watch in 2013 list.

I want to extend a sincere thank you to Pet Product News, as I am humbled to be placed on that list. It is a great honor to have received and one that I hope to live up to.

– Craig Rexford