BlogPaws Conference to Stream Live
SamsonMedia, publisher of this blog, is proud to announce that we will be producing the live streaming portions of the upcoming BlogPaws conference in June.
“If you can’t make it out to Salt Lake City we’ll be bringing the conference to you,” explained Gene R. Sower, president of SamsonMedia.net.
Two complete tracks each day will be streamed live over the Internet and will include real-time chat and social media interaction with the speakers during the presentation. “The goal is to make the people who are participating via live stream feel like they’re in the room,” explains Sower. That means that the cameras will be in the front row of the presentation in attempt to create a TV-like feel. “We’ll be including shots of the speaker as well as their PowerPoint or other presentation materials with full audio and real-time social media chat so that viewers from around the world will be able to ask questions and participate in real-time,” Sower added.
In addition to the live stream experience, each included presentation will be recorded and archived for later viewing. There’s even a discounted package for in-person attendees who want to be able to view the workshops that they may otherwise have missed simply due to being unable to be in two places at one time.
Getting Rid of Pet Hair Good For Business
Getting rid of pet hair is the number one pain point for pet owners according to a recent survey.
As the owner of two, white Jack Russell Terriers, I can’t believe how two small dogs could possibly shed so much.
But living with pet hair is the price we pet lovers live with as a trade off for sharing our homes with our beloved cats and dogs. But where there’s pain there’s opportunity and pet retailers and groomers and other pet professionals can capitalize on this concern by offering products that help pet owners clean up and minimize the issue of unwanted pet hair.
PET HAIR REMOVAL PRODUCTS
- Pawsitively Clean - a Bissell company; they make a variety of brooms and vacuums especially aimed at pet owners.
- KollerCraft - this company makes the FurBeGone brush; beware of the very old and clunky website with links to PDFs.
- 3M – Scotch - makes of the FurFighter – pet hair rollers and refills (we use this all the time. My wife loves it)
- Furminator – makes a wide variety of high-margin deshedding products for cats and dogs. We used to sell this when we had our online pet store.
By the way, as a total aside, check out the Furminator Facebook page as an example of a pet retailer who is really doing it right on Facebook and crushing it when it comes to social media marketing.
But back to the issue at hand, helping your pet clients and customers manage all that hair.
One suggestion: if you sell any of these products, especially the vacuums or brushes: have them set up and out of their boxes and consider doing in-store displays and demonstrations.
Free Online Training for Pet Retailers
Are you aware of this great service provided by the Pet Industry Distributors Association (PIDA) and Global Pet Expo?
They provide online training courses for a variety of topics that are useful to pet retailers that include:
- Customer service
- Animal care
- Merchandising
- Nutrition
- Manager training
And did I mention it was free?
That’s right. The program is funded by the Global Pet Expo pet industry trade show, meaning the Pet Store Pro program is a great example of an industry giving back to its own members!
What a great way for retailers to gain a competitive advantage by having all their employees go through the program and then tout that as an achievement within the store!
Or if you’re trying to get a job in the pet business, what better way to set yourself apart than what amounts to essentially free job training?
Check it out PET STORE PRO HERE
Selling to the Backyard Chicken Hobbiest
If you’re a pet retailer looking for new revenue streams you may not have to look any further than your breakfast table.
We’re talking eggs! Or chickens, actually, and in this case we know that they come first!
Why? Because backyard chicken breeders are springing up in suburbs and cities all over the US as families discover the fun and benefits of raising chickens in their backyards and even rooftops.
Raising chickens as pets and as a food source, mainly from their eggs (few backyard hobbiests slaughter what is essentially a pet for food), presents a golden opportunity for pet retailers, online and brick and mortar, to capitalize on this growing trend. One good source of background info on this growing trend is the City Chicken.
CHICKEN TOYS?
In fact, at the 2011 Super Zoo show, the Lixit Corp’s Chicken Toy won the top spot for Best Miscellaneous Product!
So you know that if there’s a market for chicken toys, there must be gold in them thar chickens!
Depending on your enthusiasm for this line of products, you can position your pet business as a one-stop-shop and expert in the field, helping chicken hobbiests to start and maintain their chickens by selling products and expertise.
PRODUCTS TO CONSIDER SELLING
- Food
- Treats
- Feeders & waterers
- Books on care and raising
- Coops or instruction books on how to build
A few chicken product manufacturers and distrbutors include:
Ways to educate and market to your backyard chicken enthusiasts may include live, in-store demonstrations of coops and setups to online videos about care and feeding. The possibilities are endless!
Pros and Cons of Selling Pet Food Online
When we talk about the pros and cons of selling “pet food” online we’re really talking about dog food and cat food, which together makes up the majority of “pet” food sales in this country.
This makes perfect sense considering that dogs and cats live in 37% and 32% of American households, respectively, well ahead of the next largest pet category of birds at just under 4%, according to the American Veterinarian Medical Association.
Years ago when I owned and operated LucyTheWonderDog.com I was approached at a trade show by someone offering to drop ship dog food for me.
At the time I never really considered selling dog food online figuring that it was too heavy and expensive to ship. But if this pet food wholesaler was willing to drop ship the food for me and I wouldn’t have to invest in a single kibble of inventory to do it, I thought “why not?”
As it turned out, selling dog food online, or pet food in general, was a large success for our business for a couple of reasons that included:
- We only sold premium brands unavailable in box stores
- We purposely targeted harder-to-find brands
- People will pay for shipping if it’s a food they really want and can’t purchase locally
- Generated repeat business and cross-sell opportunities
The last point is one of the driving factors as to why any pet supplier, online or offline, sells food. Pet food is a low margin item but, hey, the pet has to eat, so assuming you’re reasonably competitive on price and service, your customers will keep coming back for the life of their pet.
TO SELL OR NOT TO SELL, THAT, IS THE QUESTION
Getting back to online retailers who may be considering selling pet food online there is good news and bad news.
The good news first.
According to an article in Pet Age Magazine that quoted a recent study: “ …a new report released by IBISWorld, a market research group (showed that) revenue from online sales of pet food totaled $484.7 million in the five years to 2011 and is projected to increase to $595.8 million during the five years to 2016”
The reason? “Rising pet ownership in the United States and growth across the e-commerce sector has caused the industry to experience overall growth, despite the recession,” said IBISWorld analyst Kevin Culbert.
The bad news?
Recent pressure from US legislators to close a tax loophole that will require all online retailers, both inside and outside the pet industry, to start collecting sales tax on all orders. Online retailers have long enjoyed a tax advantage by only having to charge sales tax within the states where they have a physical presence. That may change if tax-starved states have their way, putting increased pressure on already thin profit margins combined with shipping costs, making online purchases less attractive to sellers and buyers alike.
BOTTOM LINE: Experiment with a couple of exclusive lines. Go to trade shows like Global Pet Expo, Super Zoo or HH Backer and seek out drop-ship relationships with up and coming premium pet food companies who are eager to get their brands out there. Start small, experiment with free shipping options or lower cost shipping options to offset the day when sales taxes may eat into your online pricing advantage.
Going to HH Backer Show?
We just filled out our application for press credentials to the 2012 HH Backer trade show today. Are you going?
The 3-day show, scheduled for April 18 -20 in Atlantic City, NJ, is something we look forward to each year, especially because we’re based in New Jersey. So to have one of the largest and most influential pet trade shows in our own backyard makes it a no-brainer for us to attend.
Last year we used the opportunity to walk the floor and conduct some video interviews that we shared with you on this blog.
This year we’ll be doing the same but we’d like your help in one of two ways:
- If you read this blog or our Facebook page and you plan on being at HH Backer this year, let us know and we’d love to stop by your booth and interview you about your pet products or services
- If you’re not planning on being at the show but would love to learn about someone or some product or company who is, let us know and we’ll check it out for you. Let us be your eyes and ears!
Seriously. Let us know! Either comment below on this blog, post on our Facebook page or email me at gene at samsonmedia.net.
In the meantime, check out this cool interactive exhibitor list, floor plan of the show and category list by clicking HERE.
SEO WEBINAR Preview
We wanted to show you a quick test we did with our webinar software to highlight the webinar interface which includes webcam, PowerPoint, chat, audio and full-motion videos. So we recorded a brief preview video that highlights the capabilities of the webinar software we’ll be using. We also included a $5 coupon code IN THE VIDEO (see below) as our way of saying thanks for watching. Hope to see you next week! Here’s the preview:
SPECIAL DISCOUNT CODE
For anyone who watches this video, we included a $5 discount coupon code that you can use to get $5 off the $29 price of the webinar by entering it at check out.
DETAILS
- Direct sign-up page CLICK HERE
- Sales page with additional info CLICK HERE
Join Us January 24th for a Search Engine Marketing Webinar
Join us on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012, for an interactive online webinar at two convenient times to learn how the proper search engine optimization (SEO) plan can transform YOUR business in a positive way (sign-up details below). This interactive webinar will feature audio, video, PowerPoint and live chat capabilities. Here’s a brief promo that spotlights some of the topics that we’ll be covering:
Complete info and signup information HERE
How to Use Title Tags to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
You may have heard about META tags in some of our other posts or read about them in other places on the Internet. While META tags don’t have the power they once did to attract relevant searches to your website, the META tag that still carries some weight is the TITLE tag.
How many times have you gone to a website and at the top of the browser window it says “HOME”, like this illustration below:
Title your page using your keywords
Not to pick on South Western Pet Collars used in the illustration but the Title Tag should be something more like: “Fine handmade pet collars for dogs and cats – South Western Pet Collars”
This gets relevant keywords (Handmade pet collars, and pet collars for dogs and cats) as well as their name in the title tag. This gives them a fighting chance to come up in a search for those phrases because right now, the way it reads, if someone searches for the word “Home”, that’s the phrase they’re associated with. Them, and a bagillion other websites that didn’t change their title tags either!
WHERE ARE YOUR META TAGS?
All META tags live in the underlaying code of your webpages. You can access them by using a tool such as Dreamweaver but in order to actually change them and then upload the changes to your server you’ll need to be able to FTP. If you don’t know what FTP is, click here for a a useful tutorial but I would suggest you have whoever built your site do it for you. If you’re feeling brave you can try it yourself but you’ll need a special piece of FTP software. We use a free FTP tool called FILEZILLA. You can get FILEZILLA here.
The important point to understand is not to necessarily DO it yourself, but understand what’s possible and strategize the best keywords to use so you can at least have an intelligent and fruitful conversation with whoever updates your website.
You can learn lot’s more about SEO tactics and strategies and why they’re important, along with several specific case studies and success stories by signing up for our SEO webinar HERE or checking out our free SEO tutorial HERE.
SIGN UP FOR OUR SEO WEBINAR HERE
Learn How To Get More Internet Traffic to Your Pet Website
If you’re looking to increase sales and get more relevant, quality, search engine traffic to your pet business website, please join us on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012, for an interactive online webinar at two convenient times to learn how the proper search engine optimization (SEO) plan can transform YOUR pet business in a positive way . This interactive webinar will feature audio, video, PowerPoint and live chat capabilities so you can ask questions and learn how to get more traffic, leads and sales from your website.
This webinar is based on the workshops that I’ve been giving at the Super Zoo trade show for the last 5 years but is completely updated. The main difference? You won’t have to travel all the way to LasVegas to benefit from it.
For members of the Pet Business Opportunity community only (Facebook, Twitter, this blog and email newsletter) we are offering $10 off the admission price starting now until Sunday, January 7th when the pricing will return to $29 — still a bargain!
Please check out the free bonuses, etc., and sign up today. Space in the webinar is limited to the first 50 people.
What better way to start the New Year then by learning how to harness the power of the Internet for YOUR business?
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP NOW and enter the following COUPON CODE to get your $10 discount: earlybird010712 (the “0′s” are zeros)
FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!