Pets are not only human companions, but also human consumers. With the improvement of people's living standards and the increase of emotional needs, pet raising has become a fashion and trend.
Everyone always says that young people don't like to have children, they love to raise cats and dogs, so the pet economy is about to take off, but now not only does it not take off, but it is about to collapse. Today's young people can't wait to even be pets themselves, and they are less and less likely to be fooled.
In fact, the pet market has fallen into a "deep winter" since the second half of 2022, with pet prices plummeting, transaction volume shrinking sharply, and dragging down downstream industries such as offline pet consumption and pet food.
So, why is the pet economy gradually collapsing?
The first is that capital speculates on the sky-high pet economy.
When pet ownership first became popular, I just thought it was cute to have a cat and a dog, and it seemed that I could get some food to live when I bought it, but it turned out that it was not at all, and it was ridiculously expensive to raise a pet now.
The hottest time of this round of pet fever was 21 years, that is, when the economic recovery was the strongest, and the wages of young people at that time were also high, so in that year, China had 10 million more pet cats, more than the current annual birth population. There are more people who buy cats, and the price will naturally go up, and the gold gradient is the most expensive when it is sold for more than 10,000, and now a few hundred yuan can buy a good gold gradient.
In this similar situation, in fact, the Tibetan mastiff also had a round of speculation, and finally collapsed.
A few years ago, when the Tibetan mastiff was hot, it was not an exaggeration to sell a Tibetan mastiff for 3 or 5 million, or even tens of millions. Some people are interested in the interests behind the Tibetan mastiff and have devoted themselves to the Tibetan mastiff breeding and sales industry, and many investors have entered the game with capital, earning a lot of money (about 100,000). The Tibetan mastiff economy was once hot.
From 2010 to 2013, the popularity of the Tibetan mastiff economy reached a peak. But after 2013, the Tibetan mastiff economy went downhill. By 2016, the Tibetan mastiff economy was approaching freezing.
However, if you buy a puppy or a kitten home, the place where you spend money behind is not over at all, but if you get sick, it is simply a monthly salary for a minor illness and an annual salary for a major illness.
Some netizens spend on pets including: staple food, insect repellent (internal + external drive), pine hair cream, fruit shampoo, hair care cream, go out to bathe, shearing, winter clothes, snacks probiotics, Tibetan food blankets, toothpaste, toothbrushes, eye drops, ear cleansing, hair protection spray, tooth cleaning powder, toys, saliva towels, traction, nests, water cups, paw paste, bowls, cryptorchids for sterilization, etc., and even buy pet insurance.
After rough calculations, the cost of raising a dog for most people is almost always higher than 300 yuan per month, the median is around 500 yuan, and it is not uncommon to spend thousands of yuan per month.
What's more, the current economic environment is not good, young people have little money in hand, young people under the age of 30 have done their best to take care of themselves, where is the money to spend on pets.
Therefore, abandoning pets has become the choice of many young people, and even formed a social phenomenon. During the two sessions in 2021, some representatives even proposed to include pet abandonment in the credit system.
Secondly, the industry atmosphere is mixed.
In order to seize business opportunities, some unscrupulous businesses will use shoddy products and attractants at will, and some also "play the side ball" in advertising. As of the end of May 2023, there have been more than 11,000 complaints about "cat food" and "dog food" on the third-party consumer service platform Black Cat Complaints, among which product deterioration, false publicity, and after-sales dissatisfaction have become the focus of complaints.
For example, on this year's 315 International Consumer Rights Day, a news story about "making the most expensive pet food out of the worst things" became a hot topic among consumers on social media. According to the investigation, known as the "hometown of China's pet food", Nanhe District, Xingtai City, Hebei Province, many pet food quality into the market is not up to standard, illegal manufacturers in pursuit of higher profit margins, the use of "doped stone powder", "doped feather powder" and other inferior raw materials, seriously endangered the health of pets.
In addition, there are even incidents in the industry in which animal hospitals use human drugs as veterinary drugs, and Jining High-tech Zone Pet Hospital is responsible for the use of human drugs mannitol injection and metronitra sodium chloride injection for animal treatment.
More serious are cat triplets, dog double counterfeiting, etc., which also reflects the current supervision of the pet industry is facing severe challenges.
For pet-related enterprises, providing safe, healthy and high-quality pet products and services to meet the needs of consumers is the key to the sustainable development of the industry.
So, now, those who want to make money for pets, are basically lying down.
Petty shares, the "first share of pet economy" in A-shares, is one of the earliest enterprises specializing in the pet food industry in mainland China. In the first three quarters of 2022, its revenue increased by nearly 50% and its profit increased by more than 100%. However, the performance did not help the share price, which fell by 14.3% in 2022.
China's pet food industry, a leading company in China's pet food industry, saw its revenue and profit growth rate exceed 30% in the first three quarters of 2022, but its share price fell by more than 26% for the year.
The market value of Poqi pet, the first share of pet e-commerce, is only one thousandth of that at its peak.
New Ruipeng, a leading enterprise in pet hospitals, has raised hundreds of millions of yuan and acquired more than 1,300 hospitals, but it has been failing to go public, and it has lost more than 3 billion in three years.
However, the current period of "reluctance" does not mean permanent pessimism, China's pet market has not started for a long time in the real sense, and there is still an optimistic factor for sustainable digging.
This optimistic factor is singleness and aging, respectively, I will not expand on it here, everyone who understands it understands. In general, for the Chinese market, the pet economy has both room for growth and upward momentum.