In the eyes of Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho, a specialist in marketplaces and online sales growth, Black Friday, the discount event held on the last Friday of November, has become one of the most important moments of the year for pet retail. The numbers support this view: in one edition of the event, veterinary clinics and pet shops led the growth in sales processed by Itaú Unibanco on the days leading up to it, with a 38.9% increase, and Google searches for “pet shop” rose by nearly 550% in a single morning.
Faced with this volume, many stores treat the date as a big clearance sale, where the goal is to sell as much as possible in just a few days. The problem is that some buyers arrive drawn only by the discount and do not return once it is over. For those who sell products that are bought on a recurring basis, such as pet food and training pads, the real gain lies in the second purchase, and winning it starts before the event. There is still time to adjust this year’s plan with the four decisions below.
Choosing offers that lead to repeat purchases
The first decision is what to put on sale. Discounting the entire catalog cuts margins across the board and attracts buyers looking for a one-time bargain. Hugo Galvao notes that replenishment products, such as training pads, cat litter, and pet food, work better as a gateway, because the customer who buys them today will need them again in a few weeks. Items that can be stocked up at home are also in demand at this time of year, since pet owners take advantage of the prices to buy ahead.
This does not mean giving up on higher-value products, such as beds and pet carriers, which draw attention and raise the average ticket, the amount spent per order. The difference lies in the role each item plays in the campaign. While replenishment products create a concrete reason for customers to come back, higher-value items help cover the cost of acquiring that buyer, which during Black Friday tends to be higher because of the competition for ad space.
Securing inventory and delivery times for the order peak
The second decision involves operations. A new customer forms an opinion about the store with their first order, and on Black Friday that order arrives alongside hundreds of others. Running out of stock mid-campaign, delays in picking, or delivery times longer than advertised leave an impression that is hard to reverse. For this reason, conversations with suppliers and carriers need to take place weeks in advance, based on the volume of previous editions and projected growth.
In the pet segment, the peak has another particularity: many orders include heavy items, which require more space in the shipping area and drive up freight costs. According to Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho, it is worth reinforcing the picking team and setting realistic delivery times for these products, even if they are somewhat longer. Buyers accept waiting a few days when the information is clear from the start, but they rarely forgive a broken promise on their very first purchase.
Getting to know first-time buyers
The third decision is how to make use of the information generated by orders. On marketplaces, contact with buyers follows each platform’s rules, and direct relationships are limited. In a company’s own online store, such as www.enjoypets.com.br, it is possible to invite customers to share, with their consent and in accordance with Brazil’s General Data Protection Law, their animal’s species, age, and size, information that guides future offers far more precisely than a generic promotional email.
Even on marketplaces, useful information is available: which products new customers bought, in which regions, and in which combinations. Hugo Galvao indicates that this analysis should be done right after the campaign, before planning for the following month takes over the team’s attention. A store that discovers, for example, that many new customers bought puppy food knows that, in a few months, those same owners will need to switch to an adult formula.
Planning the next contact before the product runs out
The last decision concerns when to reach out to the customer again. A pack of training pads or a bag of cat litter bought on Black Friday runs out within a fairly predictable interval, and it is at that point, not weeks later, that the pet owner is open to buying again. A replenishment message sent shortly before the product runs out is more relevant than any generic campaign sent out in December.
At this next contact, the discount can be smaller than the Black Friday one, as long as the experience makes up for it: on-time delivery, the right product, and customer service that knows the customer’s history. Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho proposes measuring the event’s success not only by the revenue from those days but also by the number of new customers who placed a second order in the following months. It is this number that shows whether the campaign bought sales or won over buyers.