Daily Sharing: Why do cats dominate the growth of the pet market? (three)

How come there are so many cat owners at

? An important reason is that young people now have emotional needs.

PwC's report mentioned the characteristic distribution of pet owners in China today: 88% are women, 50% are post-80s and post-90s; 57% have a college degree or above; 50% are singles. You see, in general, there are more women, more young people, more highly educated, and single.

You may still remember that in September of last year, our program had an issue on the "lonely economy". It was about why young people in cities now start to keep pets in large numbers. Most of these young people work in other places, far away from their families, and keep pets to have a companion and relieve loneliness. They found love and belonging in their pets.

But you may have to ask: dogs and cats are equally cute, and can also relieve loneliness, and cats feel colder. In contrast, dogs are more enthusiastic and unrestrained and prefer to be close to their owners. Then why do more people choose to keep cats?

is very simple, the cat's habits are more suitable for the needs of young people. Let me just talk about two details: I have a dog myself, a small Corgi, and I need to go out for a walk every morning and evening, I need to ensure a certain amount of exercise, and I must solve the excretion problem outside. But cats don’t need to be raised at home, as long as there is a litter box, they will go to the toilet by themselves. Dogs also need to bathe regularly, otherwise they will get smelly, while cats usually use their tongues to clean their bodies, and there will be no smell on their bodies without bathing for a long time.

You must know that almost all young people who keep pets are busy office workers, and it is difficult for them to have a lot of energy to take care of their pets. Relatively speaking, raising a cat is more worry-free, so more people choose to raise a cat.

What we just said is the first driving factor for the rapid growth of the pet market. There are more cats. Let's talk about another growth driver, the upgrade of pet consumption. At this point, the cat also played a leading role.

The breeding concept of the new generation of pet owners has changed. They generally regard pets as relatives or children, put more emotions in pets, and are more willing to spend money on pets. Data shows that domestic pet expenditures accounted for the proportion of household expenditures from 0.16% in 2014 to 0.29% in 2019.

In this context, the pet market has ushered in a consumption upgrade, and the fastest upgrade is pet food. As you know, traditional domestic pets are usually leftovers, but today's pet food is becoming more and more professional. Whether it is a cat or a dog, they will eat special cat food or dog food, and they are also divided into dry food, wet food, snacks and other categories. At present, pet food accounts for 55% of China's pet market, and it is the largest and fastest growing sector in the pet industry. The

report predicts that high-end pet food will usher in a wave of rapid growth in the future. The so-called "high-end" refers to pet food with high meat content and high protein. Among them, high-end cat food will become the first market segment to rise. why? It's because of the cat's habits. Regardless of the fact that cats do not have a high demand for food, but the taste is very "picky", so owners usually pay more attention to quality when choosing cat food. This also explains why high-end imported cat food on Double Eleven sells so much. All right.

In addition, I also found that cat snacks have also become a major growth point in the pet food market. You know, in the pet snack field, dog snacks have long dominated. This is not only because of the large number of dog owners, but also because dog snacks are often used as rewards after training. However, the new trend in recent years is that cat snacks have become one of the fastest growing market segments. The total market in 2019 has increased by 76%, and there is huge room for future development. The report believes that this will even be the next blue ocean in the pet market.

In terms of pet supplies, consumption upgrades have also appeared. Smart devices have become a hot spot for consumption upgrades in recent years. In recent years, pet drinking fountains and automatic feeders have become extremely popular, and they have almost become "standard equipment" for many pet owners.

And what I want to tell you is that many smart devices are created around solving the pain points of raising cats. The most representative one is the smart litter box. Many cat owners around me complain that raising cats is a happy thing, except shoveling shit. The smart cat litter box solves this problem very well. After it senses that the cat goes to the toilet, it will automatically clean up, filter out the clumped cat litter and pour it into the storage box. The cat owner only needs to dump it every few days. The storage box is just fine, which greatly eases the pain of shoveling shit.

don't look at smart cat toilets are expensive, Often thousands of dollars, but it sells very well. I just saw a piece of data from the Tmall platform that from November 1 to now, sales of pet smart home products have increased 58 times year-on-year. The category with the highest sales volume is the smart litter box.

I have shared with you the reasons for the rapid growth of the domestic pet market in recent years. Regardless of the increase in the number of pets raised or the upgrading of pet consumption, cats have played a leading role.

I have seen a very interesting sentence before, saying that there are many pet supplies on the market. In fact, pets do not need them, but owners need them. Love needs to be exported. From this perspective, cats can lead the growth of the pet market, perhaps because they have more places where people can "spend money for love".