A strong player

Moura da Silva opened his first pet shop in the surroundings of Porto in November 1994. Although only covering a few square metres, it was a success from the outset. The business relocated shortly afterwards to a nearby shopping mall, also increasing its retail area to 200 m². From here rapid progress was made. The experienced pet product trader had a good nose for his stock range and now began to import pet products.
In 2014, Jorge Moura returned to his father's company. He had already been active in the pet supplies sector, having worked previously at Nestlé and a leading Portuguese pet food producer. Now he is driving forward the development of the retail chain energetically, but aims to maintain healthy and stable growth.

15 Ornimundo stores were opened up to 2017. In December of that year, the company acquired its rival ZooFeira, which operated nine stores. These are gradually being rebadged as Ornimundo outlets. The average size of the 24 stores is 250 m², with retail areas ranging from 100 to 1 000 m². All the stores are located in shopping malls or retail areas, including three so-called flagship stores in Porto, Coimbra and Sintra. 150 people are employed in the stores. Jorge Moura is constantly being offered existing pet shops for takeover or new properties for opening more Ornimundo stores. However, he always scrutinises the terms carefully - he is not interested in growth at any price.
The stores offer around 10 000 articles for sale, with dog and cat products accounting for over 75 per cent of sales. Live pets are a standard feature of all stores, even dogs and cats, which are obtained exclusively from local breeders. An adoption programme operates in parallel and roughly more than 100 pets a year are placed with owners through this.
A new sales concept is currently being piloted in the 100 m² boutique store in Lisbon. Under this, the salesperson is given a tablet computer and accompanies customers as they shop in the store. The selected products are put into a virtual shopping basket, paid for at the till and then delivered to the customer's home. Thousands of customers are also listed in the company's online store and Ornimundo clearly pushes its CRM program towards an omnichannel experience. Ten of the outlets now have their own grooming service under the name of Pet Stylist, while three feature a veterinary clinic. "These are services that we want to expand significantly," says Jorge Moura. He stresses proudly that all the…