NEW YORK (AP) – Danielle Schwartz did not ask for an oil painting of her cat. But she loves the portrait of Stinky hanging in her home in New York State, a surprise gift from an unlikely place: an online pet store.
It is one of more than 1,000 free paintings that Chewy sends to select clients every week – even during the pandemic – to tap people’s obsession with their fur children and, it hopes, win clients for life.
In the cutthroat world of online shopping, that personal touch and a bit of kitsch is how Chewy wants to stand out from the competition, which has only gotten stiffer as more people shop online and add pandemic pets to their families. According to the Petco Foundation, pet ownership is expected to grow by 4% in 2020, the first increase in years.
Chewy’s strategy seems to work on Schwartz, whose blue-eyed cat likes to rub the painting from his cat tree.
“I just want to buy everything from them,” she says. ‘They are a big company. I was shocked that they did such a personal thing. “
The portraits have become a hit on social media, where people share images of them or beg to turn their pets into works of art.
Eric Sheridan, a sales specialist from Lee, Florida, requested a portrait via the Twitter account of Gozer, his Boston terrier with more than 3,000 followers. A Chewy rep sent back, “My legs are crossed we can send you one.” It arrived a month and a half later. “Christmas came early,” Sheridan tweeted van Gozer’s account.
Not everyone is thrilled about taking a mystery portrait – the company acknowledges that some confused customers are sending them back. But many who get a pet portrait document it for social media and give Chewy ads for free – a trend the company noticed when it first started shipping them.
“Customers went bananas,” said co-founder Ryan Cohen, who came up with the idea in 2013 before leaving the company.
Founded in 2011, Chewy married Amazon’s fast delivery with the kindness of a local pet store. It was also meant to get their hands on some of the fortune Americans spend on their pets, which is expected to total $ 99 billion by 2020, according to the American Pet Products Association. Pet store chain PetSmart bought Chewy for more than $ 3 billion in 2017 to expand its online business, but turned Chewy into a public company two years later now worth about $ 40 billion, even though it never made a profit.
According to retail consultancy 1010data, Amazon and Chewy dominate the online pet supplies industry, with Amazon’s market share of more than 50% and Chewy of 34%. But the pandemic has been especially good for Chewy, as people avoid brick-and-mortar stores. The stock price has more than tripled in 2020. Sales were up 45% in the August to October quarter. And it added 5 million new customers in the past year, bringing the total customer base to nearly 18 million.
Phillip M. Cooper, a consultant in the pet industry, appreciates customer service. “It set the standard,” he says.
The company’s 2,500 agents are trained to answer questions from pet parents, such as what food is best for senior puppies or where to find shelter. Chewy sends new customers handwritten notes, and all customers receive Christmas cards in the mail. It even sends flowers to people whose pets have passed away.
“It helped ease the pain,” said Jordan Redman of Norman, Oklahoma, who received a bouquet of flowers after her golden retriever, Bud, passed away.
But it’s the paintings that make customers pant. There’s no way to buy one from Chewy, and the company isn’t exactly saying how someone will be selected. But it usually sends them to those who have pet photos on their Chewy account or have shared one with a customer service representative.
For clues, look to Danielle Moore’s experience, who said Chewy asked her to send a photo of her Australian cattle dog Kana during a call about returning an order. Kana’s likeness came to light three months later. Moore liked it so much that she tried to buy another one through Chewy, but the customer service representative wouldn’t budge. Instead, the Dallas pharmacy ordered one for $ 36 on Etsy, and the paintings hang together on the wall.
Chewy does not disclose the costs of creating and shipping the portraits. It has collaborated with hundreds of artists across the country who have emailed photos of their subjects through the company.
Josh Lawson, who paints 20 to 50 portraits a week, has snakes, goats, and even what he thinks were bison. It may take two hours or more to create a portrait. Fluffy kittens, for example, need extra attention and a long-tip brush to get the right amount of fluff. “I want them to look real,” he says.
There is pressure to do that. Chewy says it rejects artwork that doesn’t resemble the pet enough, or returns it to be reworked. The goal is for people to talk Chewy to others and get a prominent place on the shopkeeper’s walls, which serves as a billboard for the company.
Annesley Clark, a law student in St. Louis, was surprised how much the free painting looked like her pit bull mix, Willow. “I was beside myself,” she says. “It’s exactly her.”
She couldn’t wait to show it off. The next day, she took it to a social picnic with four others and held up the artwork. “I said, ‘Look at this. It’s perfect.’ ‘Her friends agreed.
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Follow Joseph Pisani on Twitter: @ josephpisani