Central Pet Puts Emphasis on Aquatics

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As part of a strategic growth plan, Central Pet is making more of a commitment to aquatics.

To accomplish this, the pet product distributor  added 10 more aquatic vendors at their recent Northeast Show in Connecticut, extended more aquatic lines and increased their customer service resources in the aquatics division.

“We are trying to focus on strengthening our aquatics offerings,” explained Kevin Kurz, director of purchasing – east for Central Pet. “We are seeing a gap in the marketplace that didn’t exist before and we want to be their home.”

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Kurz explained this hasn’t impacted any of their other divisions and that the company wants to be a “full-line pet distributor.”

Another reason the company is bolstering the commitment to their aquatics customer service is that they are seeing a shift in the type of aquatic products being purchased from fresh water to salt water.

“It was about 90 percent fresh water and 10 percent salt,” he said. “Now, we are seeing about 80 percent fresh and 20 percent salt. Kids used to want goldfish, now it’s Nemo.”

Because of this, the technical information associated with these products are more skill-intensive.

“It’s more chemicals, it’s more elements,” he explained. “It becomes more technical.”