Awards presentation in Fulda

Over 160 delegates attended the Pet Conference in Fulda at the end of October. Entitled “Emerging from a state of shock: future prospects for the pet supplies sector”, the conference provided trade and industry representatives with a picture of the latest trends and developments in the German pet product market. The main focus was on the common challenge posed by the Internet. The conference is a regular event organised by Dähne Verlag with its trade magazines pet and PET worldwide and conference organiser Management Forum of the Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt. It takes place biennially, with the International Pet Conference taking place in the intervening years.

A highlight of the conference was the presentation of awards to successful companies in the pet business on the evening of the first day. In previous years awards have been given to the proprietors of individual pet stores, but this year the pet trade magazine honoured two retail chains for the first time on the basis of a consumer survey carried out by the market research company Konzept & Markt. 2 000 pet owners chosen as a representative sample from all over Germany were asked to name their preferred outlets for purchasing pet products and to rate the services of the retailers they frequented. DIY and garden centre operators, supermarkets and drugstore operators were taken into consideration as well as the leading pet store chains. A separate survey asked about preferred online pet product suppliers.
The key performance categories to be judged included product range, store atmosphere and shopfittings, the competence of the staff and the range of services offered. 95 retail organisations in all were named in which the pet owners had shopped at least once in the previous twelve months.
The speciality chain Zoo & Co., with 170 stores in Germany and Austria, came out on top of the survey for the most popular retailer of pet products, followed by Kölle Zoo and Futterhaus. When it came to customer service in particular, an extensive range of goods, a large selection of well-known brands and contact with the customers, the franchise system belonging to the Sagaflor cooperative scored top marks. The store atmosphere and shopfittings were also viewed in a positive light by the survey respondents, but the company didn’t do quite as well with regard to the location and accessibility of the stores. In this respect the supermarkets were out in front. Carsten Eisele, scheme manager of…