Big players

Although no official figures exist, those with a knowledge of the sector say there are around 3 000 pet stores in Poland, most of them still with retail areas of less than 100 sqm. The market as a whole is growing at over five per cent annually. Food and accessories for dogs and cats are cited as the biggest sales drivers, followed by small animals. Sales in these three categories are rising. Aquatics and terrariums continue to stagnate, while the exotic bird segment is in decline.

The Kakadu retail chain was launched in spring 2008 with ambitious plans. It was created by a merger of the three chains Anna Zoo, Pyszczak and AB, and the aim was to have up to 100 outlets by 2015. However, the chain quickly got into financial difficulties and was finally taken over in December 2014 by the Czech Placek Group. Today, with 170 stores in five countries, Dusan Placek's company is one of the leading pet supplies chains in central and eastern Europe. In addition to the Kakadu chain, the dynamic company operates the online shop www.telekarma.pl
Today there are 41 Kakadu stores across Poland with an average retail area of 300 sqm. "We created a new concept with new colours, shelving, a lot of emotion and live animals," Dusan Placek told PET worldwide. "In my opinion it's the best concept on the Polish market nowadays and by number of stores and turnover we are the leader in the Polish market." Seven new stores are planned for 2017, and after that five to ten new projects annually. Dusan Placek believes the Polish market has a great future and the biggest potential of all the countries in which he operates.

Rumour and conjecture persisted for a few years before the Fressnapf Group of Germany finally let the cat out of the bag in 2012: the first Maxi Zoo store was to open in Warsaw. The company now has six outlets in Poland, which is the most recent addition to the group. Like stores in the other ten countries in the Fressnapf Group, the Polish stores stock over 6 000 items on an average retail area of 450 m². All the group's private label products are available in the Maxi Zoo range too, along with popular manufacturer's brands and some Polish brands. Poland is one of the four markets on which Fressnapf is focusing for expansion of the bricks and mortar stores in addition to Germany, Italy and France, according to the company's head office in Krefeld. It plans to increase the number of stores in Poland to over 100 by 2021.