Demand for pet products and services climbs during outbreak

Owners purchase more as shutdowns keep furry family members indoors

While the novel coronavirus outbreak stopped many businesses from resuming work, the extended Spring Festival holiday turned out to be a hectic time for suppliers of key necessities for pets.

"Villages where most of our food and sanitation stuff were stored or sourced were sealed off because of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Transportation which was key for product delivery in some areas was also halted. Once our customers became aware of this, they resorted to panic buying necessities ... for pets," said Lu Kun, general manager for e-commerce at wecarepet.com.

The firm is a technology company focusing on pet-related information sharing, consulting, medical services and e-commerce since its establishment in 2015.

"Not only us, many pet product stores on Taobao or JD received overwhelming orders for food and sanitation products. Our sanitation products already went out of stock a couple of days ago," Lu said.

Consulting on pets' health also increased on the company's WeChat subscription account, which has over 310,000 followers to date, Lu said.

The surge came about just when many local governments urged a shutdown in pet care centers or veterinary hospitals to reportedly prevent the coronavirus from spreading further due to rumors that pets were exacerbating the spread of the disease.

"Normally we receive about 100 consulting requests from our WeChat followers on average per day. But during this extended Spring Festival holiday, we have been receiving 200-300 consulting requests on a daily basis. Among those, about 90 percent asked for one-on-one consulting with veterinarians who charge from 39 yuan ($5.59) to 79 yuan based on the question," Lu said.

The company has recruited nearly 100 veterinarians to date, both part-time and full-time and mainly Chinese, from around the world for consultations.

"We also received questions asking about pets' masks, as many dog owners in less severely stricken areas still need to walk their dogs. But we haven't started this product line, considering there's no such quality check on producers, no hygiene standards during production procedures, nor a way to prove the masks are effective in preventing infections," Lu explained.

"Pet masks" remain hot words for searches on Taobao and JD.

A pet mask seller named Saila on Taobao has sold over 5,500 masks for dogs during the recent month, with the mask priced at 49 yuan each. Another dog mask seller named Langsi on Taobao also sold 4,640 masks for dogs last month, with each mask priced between 49 to 53 yuan.

Pet food, cat litters, dog masks, sanitary products, medical consulting services are ordinary products and services which have seen a surge in demand during the outbreak as people scrambled to care for their furry family members.

Aside from those ordinary products, some novel services like training or indoor dog walking and preventing dogs from getting depressed have also seen a spike in demand.

Juxiaomeng, an online coaching platform for pet owners, launched a one-on-one coaching series on pet training which has been specially designed to deal with the epidemic period.

"We have specialized lessons to teach owners to walk their dogs indoors. They were welcomed in severely stricken areas. We also have lessons on how to prevent dogs from getting infected while walking them outdoors," said Wen Jianguo, the founder and CEO of Juxiaomeng.

The firm's one-on-one coaching series was priced at 1,680 yuan-3,000 yuan on Taobao. Wen said the series, especially remote coaching through video chat, sold well during the outbreak.

The company's free videos on pet training on social media accounts also saw a sharp increase in viewership.

Take its Douyin account as an example. Total displays hit 5 million for the recent half month on Juxiaomeng99, the company's Douyin account with over 302,000 followers. The number of displays is much higher than usual, since it was about 3 million times on average for a half month, according to Wen.

Kong Jing, a consultant with the Chinese Pet Products Association, said there is a rocketing demand for pet care, necessity products, and prevention methods during the epidemic, as more owners are taking measures to prevent their pets from being infected, though so far there has been no evidence proving pets can be infected with the virus, as noted by the World Health Organization.

Kong said though the booming demand is creating more opportunities for the business, regulators should pay due attention to the market and take measures to safeguard its stability.