An Online Pet Business You Can Start for Free in 24 Hours
A step-by-step playbook you can follow.
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This is the fastest way to start an online pet businessâŠand youâre gonna love it.
All you need is a laptop and a PayPal account.
Table of Contents
Why Pet Merch Is a Huge Opportunity
Pet ownership is on the rise. 66% of U.S. households (86.9 million homes) own a pet, up from 56% three decades ago.1 Thatâs an 18% increase!
In fact, these days, there are more households with pets than there are households with children. In 2022, only 40% of American households had a child under 18 compared with 48% in 2002.2
Let me repeat that: There are 65% more households with pets than there are households with children. Do you see the big opportunity pet businesses present?
We love to spend money on our pets.
A growing body of evidence finds that many of us see our pets as extensions of ourselves, and when we do, weâre more likely to spend on them.3 One study even found that spending on pets can be greater than what is spent collectively on babies.4
Check this out.
âSince pets have been regarded as a part of the pet ownerâs self, the literature shows that extended self-relating to pets entails the following pairs: personal and social, symbolic and functional as well as attachment and control. Pets when considered as extended selves by their owners have demonstrated strong purchase behaviour, for instance, consumers have reported that they attempt to feed, care, spend on them, groom them, and protect them even going to the extent of mourning their death. The evidence of Pet spending on clothing such as fancy collars, clothing and bedding and other services such as dog holiday care, day-care, and pet-walking have shown an increased growth over the years. When pets are seen as an extended self, they are also believed to reflect a lot about their owner. Thereby when consumers perceive a strong connection between their extended self and pets, this relationship can positively affect their probabilities of purchase. In other areas, scholars have found a positive influence of the sense of extended self on the probabilities of purchase toward customized apparel products.â 5
Weâre not just talking about pet food and vet bills. The relationship between our pets and our extended sense of self causes us to spend more on ânice to haves,â like fancy collars and pet clothing. These purchases benefit us more than our pets.
This doesnât just apply to pets, by the way. Another study found âthat consumersâ perception of customization and the sense of extended-self were positively associated with purchase intention of customized apparel products.â6
When we combine pets as an extension of ourselves with customized pet merch, we have a huge business opportunity.
Customized pet merchandise has never been easier to make and sell.
These days, itâs incredibly easy to create customized product lines like t-shirts and dog bowls without spending any money up front. Instead of paying for a big run of inventory and then shipping it out yourself, you can upload your designs to a print-on-demand company (I like Printful), and they will do everything for you.
Hereâs how it works. (Donât worry, Iâll explain everything in more detail later in this article).
Upload your customized product designs to Printful for free.
Connect Printful to a sales channel (e.g., an Etsy shop).
When someone places an order, you collect the retail price for the purchase.
Printful gets to work making the product and deducts the wholesale cost.
When the product is ready, Printful ships the product to your customer.
Once the system is set up, order and fulfillment are totally automated. Anyone can do this, and no special skills are needed.
More importantly, when you donât need to invest in big product runs and hold inventory, creating niche products for all kinds of different facets of our identities becomes very easy. You can continuously test new products and go as narrow as you want, since the cost of creating them is so low.
Who Should Start a Pet Merch Business?
Someone who loves animals.
There are many merch businesses you could start, but if you love animals, this one will be the most fun. Youâll develop product designs and marketing campaigns based on your experience as an animal lover.
Someone who wants to create tangible products.
Physical products you can hold in your hands are satisfying in a way that digital products never will be. Seeing your product out in the world and being able to wrap it up and give it as a gift is uniquely special. If youâve always wanted to have a physical product, this is one of the easiest ways to get started.
Someone who is good at design.
You donât need to be a graphic designer to pursue this opportunity, but itâs a huge advantage if you are. The more skilled you are as a graphic designer, the more equipped youâll be to create product designs that stand out.
Someone who is good at driving traffic.
All online businesses require traffic to succeed, but lower-cost products like t-shirts and dog leashes require a continuous stream of new traffic to keep bringing in orders. If youâre already good at driving website traffic in any form, you have a huge advantage.
Someone who wants a business they can run from anywhere.
Since you donât need to personally run a warehouse or retail shop to sell your print-on-demand products, this business can really be run from anywhere. As long as you have a laptop, youâre good to go.
