Raised Right Pets, a pet food company that cooks stage-of-life specific meals for dogs and cats, is building a distribution model that could change multichannel pet retailing.
The company offers its products through independent pet retailers as well as via a direct-to-consumer subscription service. Understanding that these two channels are often at odds, Raised Right Pets set out to create a new model of distribution that allows consumers to purchase product in store or online, without one channel competing with the other.
“We know that pet food companies often struggle with offering their own e-commerce sites because it competes with their valuable retail partners,” said Adam Jacobson, Raised Right’s executive vice president. “And, of course, third party online retailers also offer a compelling channel to pet food companies as well. We wanted to create a model that makes our products available to consumers across channels but that also incentivizes retailers to encourage customers to purchase online, if that’s what they prefer.”
Sometimes independent retailers without their own e-commerce presence shy away from encouraging customers to purchase online because it often results in a lost sale and a lost customer. With today’s on-demand consumer mindset, this presents a challenge for a retailer that wants to retain customers by offering in store service.
The Right Way Retail Alliance
To combat this issue, Raised Right Pets developed The Right Way Retail Alliance, which allows all brick and mortar retailers that stock the Raised Right Pets products in-store to offer customers home delivery through Raised Right’s subscription service. For each customer who orders online, the retailer receives a percentage of their purchase.
“This is a risk-free profit for retailers and a great way to compete in today’s retail landscape,” said Jacobson. “Plus, the customer remains loyal to that retailer since the store continues to be part of the equation.”
Jacobson is familiar with the challenges that retailers face when catering to today’s omni-channel customer. Jacobson’s family owns and operates the Pet Pantry Warehouse, a retail chain serving New York and Connecticut. Like other independent retailers, he’s faced challenges with wanting to provide value to his customers who continue to shop in store. Driving them to purchase online wasn’t an option – until now.
Jacobson partnered with The Ruud family, whose roots in farming and ranching date back for centuries. While raising food for humans, the Ruud family decided to start producing the same quality of food for pets when recalls and pet food ingredient scrutiny became rampant.
“All of our meals are cooked in USDA inspected human-grade facilities and every ingredient in our meals has passed the same standards that are necessary for human consumption. Every batch of our food is lab tested after it’s cooked to help ensure our meals are safe to eat. We don’t ship any of our meals unless they pass the lab safety test,” said Braeden Ruud, the co-founder and CEO of Raised Right.
