Some independent pet store owners suffer midnight anxiety attacks over the strength of their larger, deep-pocketed competitors, but Frank Frattini of Farmingdale New Jersey’s The Hungry Puppy is pleased they’re around. The reason?
Frank & Teresa Frattini
He lets them use their deep pockets to create product awareness and demand, and then he “steals” their customers. The statement sounds simple in theory but requires flawless execution.
“It first requires that we identify what our competitive advantage is (if any) in the marketplace for a particular product.” And in the course of 20 years in business, they’ve identified plenty of opportunities.
For example, one of the more unique offerings of The Hungry Puppy is their free delivery service, which generates considerable additional revenue from their relatively small 3,000 sq ft store. The company operates 3 trucks that normally work on a morning and afternoon run schedule, delivering mostly pet food to homeowners, but with this money-wise twist—when customers call in their order, their well-trained staff is always ready to suggest an additional product such as a toy, collar, bowl or other items that may be on sale. Success is measured by the fact that the average delivery order is well over $100. In addition to their regular routes, The Hungry Puppy also offers an “Express Delivery Service” to their customers for a nominal fee.
It’s not just a store
He and Teresa, his wife of 28 years and business partner, have their managers carefully select and train the staff. In addition to teaching associates the basics in animal care, they also encourage the sales staff to be good listeners to better understand their customer’s needs. If executed correctly, The Hungry Puppy model as expressed by Frattini is for their advertising to be used to get customers into their store initially for the transaction and have that transaction developed into a relationship with their staff—something his larger competitors can’t hope to match. The result is The Hungry Puppy is much more than a place to get pet supplies…it’s a destination. Store sales volume requires 21 full-time and 4 part-time employees to handle the crush of customers—250 to 350 a day during the week and over 400 a day on weekends.
The company has developed this kind of traffic despite--or because of--there being 11 big box pet stores within 20 mile radius of their store, located in a suburb of Monmouth County.
Something that’s still being developed on a pilot basis is a personal shopper assistant program, already showing signs of success.
“We advertise to new puppy parents an opportunity to get a free one-on-one consultation at our store with one of our experienced sale associates who will assist them with everything they need from crates to collars to bowls, leashes, treats and toys.” The result is usually a sale of 10 times the average walk-in sale at the store. The way Frattini describes it “What we’re really selling is us… The Hungry Puppy, which includes our expertise, our product selection, our value added services, our competitive prices, etc.”
Turning problems into solutions
During the recent pet food recall, The Hungry Puppy was able to turn a potential crisis into an opportunity by gathering timely information about different products that were or were not involved with the recall. The information disseminated not only helped with calming the fears of their own customers, but also helped provide accurate information to the pet-owner community at large. “We took 100’s of calls from people who weren’t even our customers but because they were unable to get any definitive information from either the superstores or grocery stores, eventually they migrated to us”.
The end result was that many grateful pet owners, frustrated with little information or inaccurate information from the big boxes became loyal customers.
Frank’s probably most excited about The Hungry Puppy’s website. “This is where the exponential growth potential of our company is coming from, both now and for the foreseeable future” he said. The typical orders that are generated from the website www.thehungrypuppy.com look totally different than in-store sales.
Online, pet owners tend to buy in bulk. While an in-store customer might buy one case of cat food, an online purchaser would be inclined to buy 20 cases. While a pet owner might buy a case of 100 pig ears in their store, online they will buy 1,000 pig ears at a time. They’re not commercial accounts, they’re just regular people, he noted.
