Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Did you know that the pet care industry is a billion dollar industry and it is continuously growing? But are the people who care for
[00:00:11] Speaker B: your pets growing as well?
[00:00:13] Speaker A: I'm Dara Forleo and on the business of pet Care we are going to talk about what really goes on behind the scenes of those grooming tables, those daycare walls and those social media filters.
Welcome to the business of pet care where we are examining the system strategies and all the decisions shaping modern pet businesses of today. And I'm your host, Dara Forleo and I am joined very gratefully by Michelle Huey and she is the founder and CEO of Shot Pet. Michelle has been building this consumer product brand that is now taking a lead on plastic platform design and is really helping manufacturers, distributors, franchise systems and service businesses turn all those favorite trusted products into recommendations and just revenue for other businesses that may not have a storefront. And this is so exciting for people in the pet industry to have this. Michelle, how are you? Thank you for joining me.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. It's so apropos given what this, you know, recording is about with the business of pet health care, pet care and you know, shop does all that you do.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: You have, I am going to say, a very firm supporter because I love it and I think that this is great for small business owners.
I know if 10, 20 years ago when I started a business, I tried to start with retail.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's hard.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: You know what, you can't be perfect in everything.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: No, no. And that's really the target of shop. Actually it's our focus for shop are for people who want to do retail but don't have the energy or the time or the money to do it the right way or the hard way.
You know, in terms of buying the inventory, stocking the inventory, inventory. And this is why most pet care professionals don't do retail because it's a pain in the butt.
But what that also means is that they lose out on revenue that they can be getting.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: How did you, how did you, where did you see this come from? How, how did this get started? Because this is relatively new.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah, like the whole concept of shop, a new concept.
And it really started. This is actually my, I would say second, third company. My first company is a product company in the health and wellness space.
And you know, launching a brand too is really difficult. You know, manufacturing a physical product, selling a physical product is really, really hard.
But with that company and that brand, I noticed that I had all these service based businesses wanting to sell my product, but they didn't want to be a retailer, they didn't want to carry the inventory and buy the product at wholesale. And a light bulb went off and I thought, wow, I am a brand manufacturer who, who made a product that these service businesses want to recommend and sell.
And think about it, there are so many service based businesses that don't want to do traditional retail, but there's never been a platform built specifically for service based providers. And so that's what Shop is all about.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: That is. Tell me about your other company, because I. You can't not say what that other company is now.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: I know. So my other. My first company that I launched, I would say 12 years ago is called Vim and Vigor, and it's a stylish compression sock company. So again, totally different industry. It's in the compression world, it's in the health and wellness world.
And so we had a lot of physical therapists and doctors and nurses wanting to sell our product, but they didn't want to engage in this. So that was the initial start. And I thought of the idea for ShopDot during COVID but I obviously had other priorities during that time to actually kick off and begin working on Shop Dot. But I. It was one of those ideas that I couldn't shake. And I think one thing about entrepreneurship that you hear from a lot of people who start companies is like, sometimes ideas find you. You don't find ideas. And when an idea finds you, it's like you feel like you are that person that has to bring it out there in the world. And I'm sure a lot of founders and entrepreneurs watching this will probably resonate with that.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: It is so true. You just never know. And then we're always thinking, what's next? Yeah, right.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: I'm tired. I'm too tired. I can't think about that right now.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: I'm always thinking, what's the next step?
What am I missing? What am I missing out?
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Constantly. I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, it's. I think one of the key things about starting a business is you're constantly unsatisfied. But, you know, and you're like, oh, can I make it better? Can I make it bigger? Can I do something else? And it's like a constant feeling of being unsatisfied.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: That is so true. But I think, doesn't that just stem from.
From us being like needing to hit that next level sometimes too, though?
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's. I remember. So when I went to, I went to business school Years ago, and I took an entrepreneurial finance course. And the professor, Stephen Rogers, was an amazing professor. And he, he made a comment that I still remember to this day, and he said, if you are going to start a business, you have to be irrationally optimistic.
And when I think about it, I think that kind of sums up. I know you, Dara and myself, we're a little bit irrationally optimistic.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
And do we take it to the next level where it's like, in that next level is, okay, this didn't work, so now I gotta redo this because let me pivot.
Next time it's going to be even better.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: I know you have the convenience. You don't give up. You're just like, it's going to be better. You just have that conviction.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: And where do we learn that from? I mean, so many people in the past, you can't always succeed on the first try. And I think a lot of business owners forget that.
You have to keep pushing, you have to keep trying, you have to keep growing and keep looking at that. That next level. And that next level is for everybody out there that is listening in the pet industry, that if you don't have retail, here's a way to get it for yourself, for your clients to be able to pull from a network and a different type of community that you can go, oh, this I love, I love these, I love this, I love that. And I want my clients have access to this right away and, and not have to stock it.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Yep, love it. Yeah, yeah, it's. And it's, it's. It's really easy to use too. You can easily curate your own products. And, and this is kind of what, you know, I've been in the retail world for, again, 12, 13 years, and you've, I've seen such a shift in how consumers buy and what their expectations are.
You know, I think we're at this stage, stage where a lot of consumers and in our situation, pet parents have what I call endless aisle fatigue.
And what I mean by that is, yeah, when you. And I deal with this too, when I go online and I'm looking for something, because generally people, A lot of times people buy things when there's a problem and they're looking for a solution. So they go on Amazon, they go online, they look through for something, and then they're met with a lot of different options.
And it's like, where do I pick? Do I go on? Do I buy this? How do I know those 17,000 reviews are not fake reviews? Right. And you're constantly trial and erroring it. And the beauty of shop is it gives the ability for trusted pet professionals to curate products that they love and recommend and shop. That also gives them a convenient place to then share those recommendations to their clients and have a single place for checkout to discover and buy and check out. And so that is, that's the idea of it.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: It's perfect. I mean, it's everything that a retailer would want without having it right there. And you can buy from yourself, which is even better.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: That's. That's a key if you're a pet professor. Buy on your own store, eat your own dog food. No pun intended.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, it's so true.
Because it, it's like you said it. You go into these monster stores and there's 50 million different.
Which is right, which is right. And which one? And, and do I buy this, do I buy that? And all those different reviews, and yet your groomer saying, don't buy this, don't buy that, don't get this. Your vet says, don't get this, do this, do that. Oh, my gosh, it's all over the place. Who do you trust? It is.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Exactly.
How about trusting the professional? Trusting the pet professionals that are interacting with your pet on a regular basis. You know, they know your, they know your dog, they know your cat, so they see what their habits are and, you know, and they are already making the recommendation.
They just have never had a way to actually close that transaction with their clients. Yeah.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: What, what do you think is like, you're kind of filling in all these gaps. What do you think is missing from this system that is really preventing.
You have a. I'm trying to think. You have a lot of, A lot of different companies that are being represented inside. How do you pick and choose them?
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah, so, yeah, we have about 175 brands on shop and over 5,500 products and 17,000 SKUs, actually. So there's a lot of options, which is great. So we have a huge network of products and brands that the pet professional could go through and look and curate. And so, yeah, in terms of what a pet professional chooses to put on their storefront, a lot relies on their experience. Right. And what they have used, what they recommend for a lot of the brands on.
They actually provide free samples to pet professionals to allow them to try the product, too, before they even add it to their storefront and offer that to their clients. So that's huge.
But a lot of it is, you want to make sure, as a pet professional, that you can stand behind the products that you're putting on your store. You know, the idea of Shop is not to create another adding all 17,000 products onto, onto your online store through shop.
The key is to say, let me curate these collections that again, really help provide a solution to a problem that my client may.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: That your customers.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: That is really the key. Yep.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: No, I get that we need to take a quick break, but we will be right back after this. And, and we are going to talk about what happens and why.
No, I don't even know what we're going to talk about. We're just going to wing it.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: We're going to talk about a lot of things. We're talking about everything.
Foreign.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Welcome back to the business of pet care. Want more of what you're watching? Stay connected to the business of pet care. And every NOW Media TV favorite live or on demand. You can also download the free NOW Media TV app on Roku or ISO for bilingual programming in English and in Spanish. You can catch this as a podcast. Also at NowMedia TV, we are streaming around the clock. Ready when you are.
And we are back. We are going to talk more about products, wellness tools, food, grooming needs and home care, but not in a normal way because we're going to talk about it, how trust does not always translate into revenue and what we can do to fix that.
Welcome back.
So why, I'm going to ask this first question. Why do so many of those recommendations that we are, we're getting into talking about still send customers so many people send them somewhere else to do that. So this is something that we can just pick and choose, have what you need and. Oh, sorry, cat, I know. You never know. Yeah, right.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That's the thing. We're dealing with animals all the time.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: I think, I think that the challenge is, and I hear this all the time, I hear this daily that pet professionals, groomers, trainers, doggy daycares are, you know, pet sitters and walkers, they are interacting. Yeah, they're interacting with the pets on a regular basis. They have thoughts and ideas and they see things sometimes that the pet parent doesn't see. Right.
For this is what they do all the time. So they're able to see patterns and habits of the animals and maybe that's not visible readily for the pet parent. And so when they make recommendations, a lot of the pet parents are great, where do I get these recommendations that you're suggesting? And when I ask the pet professional how they handle it now, they say they'll maybe take A screenshot or take a shot picture of the product that they have sitting on the counter, or they send them a couple of, you know, links elsewhere and it's like, here you go, good luck. But it's a pain in the butt not only for the pet professional to find these, it's also a pain for the end customer to say, like, okay, great, now I have to go all over the place to make this purchase. And so, you know, because there's never really been a way for these pet professionals to be able to share an online store and make it easy for their clients to buy. And so that's really what we've seen. And I hear that on a regular basis. I'm sure you understand that too, especially when you were a groomer as well.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Yes. I mean, I'm coming at it from a different perspective for, on our website because I'm trying to showcase for you to what our, Our, our people can do. Because I don't.
But it's. When you have that product there, one, if you buy too many bottles of shampoo, first resale, then you get into, what's the expiration date? How long has it been sitting on my shelf? Am I even selling it? Is it out of season? Is it a fragrance? What is it? Do they really need it? Do they need that much of it? Am I opening it? Am I pouring it in a little to go bottle and sending it home? Like, oh, but here, now you can go and order it somewhere else and they go, I don't have time for that. Or you can get them right there and be like, oh, but here, if you go onto our website site, you can just go, here, look, I have it all nice and ordered. You can buy this, this, and this, and it'll be shipped right to you and you'll get it in the next couple days.
Yeah, you can do it at checkout with them if you set it up right. So it makes total sense to have that. And I, I hadn't even, you know, I didn't have the pet sitters and dog walkers on my radar. But going into somebody's house and saying, oh, they buy this treat, they buy this.
I mean, you have a little shop on your. Yourself for, for your clients.
You could even just have that there for yourself to purchase for your clients and have it.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: Shipped to them. So it's kind of like a nice little gift as well. I think that you could do something for, for really good clients.
I added, I think when I started setting up mine with you, I added a lot of the products I thought people would really like.
And I went through, I looked at everything, I, I went through every, I looked at all of the, the customers. And I will say I have always in the past ordered on wholesale pet and that's been the big go to. But you have to be careful on that. That is one of those that you have to meet a minimum order or a minimum quantity and there's backups or they're on backorder or specials are out. You know, it just got, it just got overwhelming on there. There's your aisle drop too. It's like, what am I ordering?
[00:18:21] Speaker B: And the file. Yeah, it can be, it's really overwhelming. And frankly, at the end of the day, retail isn't your primary business.
And to spend that amount of effort and time into it when for you your main business was grooming or if it's dog walking or sitting. Not the retail part. And so the key is making it so easy for the pet professional to not only build their store but make it insanely easy for the pet parent to just go and buy.
And so the key is, you know, building your store, putting it on your, your website, putting it on social and letting people know about your store is kind of half the battle. Like I always say, if you build it, they won't come. I don't know if people remember that movie, you know, Field of Dreams, but it's so true. If you build it, they will not come. It's like the opposite.
You need to really promote it, you need to talk about it, but once you have it, it's really nice. And frankly, a lot of the pet pros have found the experience to be really fun. They're finding new brands and products they've never heard of before. They're either requesting samples or buying them off their own site to try them out.
And it's been a really, just fun experience for them to see what could be a really good solution for a problem that their clients may be having. And that level of curation is kind of a next level service that you're providing for your clients.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: It's, I love that.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: People, it's crazy how you have to think about the ease of that.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: And just how quickly it's going to help. I mean, I think though, a lot of people are not good at promoting themselves.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I, I see that. I see most. It's really hard. You know, I, I'll be honest with you. Like, I know I'm on, on the show, which is great, but I'm not very Good. Like, I'm. I have very little social media presence almost and ever. No. Almost no LinkedIn presence. Everyone tells me, you know, you need to get out there. And. And I was just like, nobody wants to hear from me, you know, But
[00:20:38] Speaker A: I said the same thing to Mary.
I said this. I'm like, nobody wants to hear about my story. She's like, everybody wants to hear your story.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Everybody.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: I want to hear your story. Well, yeah, I want to hear your stories.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: But. But that's what it's all about. It's like the people behind the businesses. So that's what makes, you know, like, I come from. I mentioned this to you earlier offline, is I come from a family of small business owners. And so, you know, the idea that a platform like Shop is really geared to help those local small businesses that are in towns that are the backbones of a lot of communities, you know, because what we're doing is democratizing the ability for these businesses to more easily sell products and generate, like, some incremental revenue from those efforts. They're already putting all the energy in. They're already caring for the animal. They're already making the recommendation.
It's just that last mile, that last step where they don't have the ability to actually engage in that transaction. That's what Shop is meant to solve. So at the end of the day, the pet pros are already doing all the heavy lifting and the work. We're just enabling that transaction to make it more convenient for not only them, but for their clients to buy.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: How did you get into the pets?
How did I get into the passion shot?
[00:22:02] Speaker B: I know, I know. People were like, why did you not go into your own, you know, like, health and wellness? You know, why did you go into pet?
It was really interesting. You know, launching a tech company has
[00:22:15] Speaker A: been
[00:22:17] Speaker B: really different than launching a physical product.
You know, I think. I think I'm going to kind of do a little backstory on that, and I'll kind of answer your question, but, you know, launching a physical product, which I had initially started my entrepreneurial journey doing, was very tangible. You knew that there are people out there who wanted to wear compression socks. My product was really high quality. It was really clearly, visibly physically differentiated.
And so it was very kind of easy to communicate that. And, you know, you knew what your market was and your market size is.
When you deal with technology, it is a million variables. It's who you're going to go after, what your product looks like, and the fact that you can tweak your product.
A little bit and make it geared towards a different segment. And it's almost like because there's so many variables and options for how, how you could build that technology makes it frankly overwhelming.
So you actually have to create boundaries by, you know, before you even build the product. So when I launched or had the idea for Shop, I initially was thinking about it in the health and wellness space. But the funny thing is, is we actually had a pet brand stumble upon Shop, don't know how joined Shop, even though it has had nothing to do with pet.
And all of a sudden all of these groomers and dog trainers joined and I was, I was floored. I was like, what's going on here? And, and so I actually interviewed these, the pet professionals. And this was years ago now.
And I said, and I said, why did you join Shop?
And I'm going to fill you in on exactly the story in a bit because I know we're going on our next break.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: That is great. I love that. So don't forget that we are going to come back with that. No, then and now. You would be amazed how much I forgot.
I forget because I already am. Like, what are we going to talk about next?
So real quick, tell everyone how can they find shop.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: So if you go to shop.pet.com so S-H-O-P-O-T P E-T.com that is our pet channel. We have a couple of sites. You could also go to shop app.com which kind of has all of the networks that we work in. Pet is our main one. But we do now are looking to. We are starting to expand into the health and wellness space.
But our main focus is really around pet.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Perfect. Thank you. We will be right back after this message.
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Okay, we are back. And of course behind the scenes we, we are chit chatting away and everything else comes up. And now we got to come back to reality and continue talking about how you got into the industry and how you shifted. Because now I'm learning this because I did see I'm like shop. That's okay. So that is a much larger version and having different segments, verticals.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: Different industries, which is phenomenal. Because I was going to ask about hair care.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: There's so many avenues you can go with this.
Yeah.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: And the way I talk about shop, you know, obviously when I talk about shop pet, it's very specific with the pet industry. But when I talk about shop, the platform itself I kind of talk about it that we enable what I call a network commerce model.
And when I say network commerce because every ecosystem, every vertical has their whole entire network of brands and specific, you know, service based businesses. And so instead of, you know, if you look at a lot of retail and E commerce, it's a one to one, it's like I'm going to build an online store for my business and it's, it's like an isolated experience. But what shop actually enables is an entire ecosystem, an entire network being able to engage in this. And, and that's the value of it because the more pet pros that are on shop, the more that they can benefit and the more the brands are able to reach customers and that they couldn't reach otherwise, the more brands that are on Shop dot, you know, it's this kind of double sided platform network effect that I, that we call it. And so that is essentially what chop that is. So you know, our initial focus is in pet, that's our main focus. But we are looking to expand actually in the health and wellness and more more specifically in physical therapy is the kind of the next vertical because a physical therapist oftentimes recommends products they don't want to deal with retail. And so we're really going to kick that off later this year.
But getting back to how I started in pets.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: So I had, I had a pet brand, Soda Pop which is one of my favorite people do joined Shop. Not sure how he found out about him. I asked him, I actually interviewed him when he first joined. He didn't know who I was. We've now become friends. But I said why did you join Shop Dot? And he for these groomers and trainers to easily sell my products. And then all of these trainers and groomers joined and I asked them why did you sign up for ShopDot? And, and they were saying well we're looking for ways and more easily sell products without carrying inventory. And I, and I, and then I asked them what do you need to see from Shop for you to really utilize a platform? And they said well you only have one pet brand on which was Soda Pop. I need you to have more brands. And so I decided at that time and it was 20, early 2025 when this happened. I then went the platform just like.
Yeah. Last year, not that long ago last year where we went kind of what I call dark and then we, we reemerged only focus in the pet industry. Okay. Yeah. And then last year we actually won the Purina Pet Care innovation prize and you know, starting to get our name out there and so definitely we're just, we're just starting, but a lot, lots more to come.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: That's truly spectacular.
I mean it is, it's like, it's like a.
I don't, I don't. It's so perfect. So much needed.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: It's so simple.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: It's really funny because again, since I've been in the retail industry for so long, I think one thing I've definitely seen especially with technology in, in the retail world is that people don't think about the service industry a lot of times and when they looking at kind of more advanced technology and more advanced platforms. And so definitely when I launched the platform, you know, people were like small businesses, you know, okay. And then they were like, okay, service based businesses, okay. You know, people definitely looked at me a little like, why aren't you playing in the e commerce world with big brands? Or why don't you do something else?
The reality is there hasn't been a lot of technological advancement in to serve this particular customer base and so it does make a lot of sense. It's complicated on the back end, but when a pet pro joins, it's ideally very easy for a brand when they onboard, ideally it's very easy but it's stitching all these things together to enable this network commerce effect.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I, when I joined it was quick.
It was very easy to get set up and I think just, and it was fun to set up. If nothing else, it was so much fun to look through and be like, oh hey, I know them. Oh, this is one of my favorites. I love this company. Or now to be sitting here going, who do I want to recommend that I want to sell that? I see because I mean when I was going through and picking and choosing like what am I going to order? What would I want my customers?
But a lot of people just thinking out loud now a lot, a lot of people coming in may not have those thoughts themselves. Even though we do know in the pet industry there are a lot of opinionated, lots of opinions and you know, they don't like things.
So if they came in and didn't see or, or can. Is there a way to, to help people who are brand new to say, well this company does this. This does that. Because I spent an entire day, I know, going through everything, looking at all the products like that was one full day of setting it up myself. But I was picking and choosing.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: You're going through the process. It was a fun process for you. It's what you wanted to do. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. So we are actually in the process of completely revamping our onboarding process. It's going to launch closer to the end of August. But with our updated onboarding process, we are going to be asking questions with the pet pros. You know what, tell me about your business.
What do clients ask you for?
You know, you know, frequently. What products are you recommending? And so we're going to be actually getting all the inputs of information and then we're actually going to be building storefront to get them going.
So, you know, based on the inputs that they've provided. So it's a, it gets them started a lot quicker.
You know, our goal is to kind of get them fully live with a storage store within 10 minutes. And obviously you can still go in, you can remove the products we put in there, you can add more products, but sometimes just getting going is half the battle. So that is a huge update that we are making and super excited about.
Other things that we're launching is that we've heard from a lot of pet pros and also shop that is used by a lot of rescues and shelters as well.
So rescues and shelters are building storefronts and having their supporters buy products from them. And they're. All the money that they get goes back to them as a donation, which is super cool. So with that, we are actually launching a branded merchandise functionality. So you can have a hat or a hoodie or a T shirt with your logo on it and it's print on demand. And so you don't have to buy all these sizes and have them sitting in your closet. With these, you have 10 extra smalls and like, you know, one extra large and these random sizes, you don't have to worry about that.
And then what's cool is that spectacular.
Yes. So you imagine on your store you can not only sell your favorite grooming products, lick mats, beds, collars and leashes, but then you can sell your own logo branded merchandise so your, your supporters and your clients can go around marketing your business.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: I can feel more like a real school.
Put a logo on it. We want, we want our, we want our alumni coming back going, yeah, I want to support my school. I want decals, I Want who does it? And I, I'm like, we, we got our own mascot and everything.
And.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Yeah, we do have. Wow.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: And do you have a crest of sorts?
[00:35:06] Speaker A: We do, yes.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: I saw that. So that's a legit.
I mean, all you need to complete that is a quilted blanket with that logo on it.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Hey,
[00:35:20] Speaker B: exactly.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: I love it. Yes. No, I love that because I've been trying to do that and, and going. And I'm not on Shopify. I don't want to be on Shopify.
I don't want to have to do that. And, you know, there are other companies out there that do that, but if we can do it right on our website, that makes so much more sense than having to send them to somebody else's website to do that and we can keep them on our site. And. Yeah, that makes me very excited because I, I am, I'm. Sign me up. I'm ready.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: I know you're ready. You already have your store, actually.
So when we, when we launch our branded merchandise functionality, you're going to be golden. People are going to be walking around. You'll be like, I know you.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: I know where you went to school.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: We have to take a quick break. We are going to come right back. Tell them. How do they find you?
[00:36:24] Speaker B: You can find me on shop.pet.com if you're in the pet business. If you're interested in shop.in other markets or industries, check out shop.app.com and there's some more information on how you can bring shop to other markets.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: Excellent. Thank you, Michelle. And after this, we'll be back with our final segment. It.
Welcome back to the business of pet care.
We are in our final segment and right now I would like to start off with just showing you what it looks like on a website when you add the retail storefront and how easy this is to set up.
Because one thing we hear a lot, and one thing I hear a lot, especially from our students, is, but I'm not tech savvy. I don't know how to do that. And this really is a plug and play kind of a thing. You have set this up to be very streamlined.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I would say that most e commerce website builders are, and I've used all of them. I'm pretty familiar with all of them. Really complicated and hard to use and they've gotten increasingly complicated.
And so, so when I designed this, I really thought of, you know, my mom who's a hairstylist. A hairstylist, right. Like, you know, I thought about like her and then her ability to maybe create something like this and build a storefront and making sure that it's really plug and play and not a lot of kind of technical jargon involved in it. And so it's really kind of. I mean, the process is, you know, you sign up, you go through an onboarding, we ask you a series of questions, and then with our updated onboarding process, we will kind of create a turnkey storefront for you that you can go and tweak and modify if you want to. But the rest is kind of. It's almost like your online shopping, but instead of online shopping and adding to cart and buying, you are adding those products to your storefront. And you're like, but I love that product and I want to sell that product and I want to offer this to, to Fluffy and I want to offer this to Max and, and his, and his mom. And so it's, it's a very different experience. But we wanted to feel like you were kind of online shopping in a way, even though it's not exactly that. And so I think that's why you spent so much time, because you were enjoying the process of it.
And then, and then from there you, we give you a URL. So what we hear from a lot of pet professionals is some don't even have websites. And they're like, what if I don't have a website, can I still have shop? And the answer is yes, because we actually give you a URL in an online store. So you don't even have to have a website to be able to sell products. You just have to have your own desire to create one, your ability to share with clients, and that's about it.
And then if you do have a website, you can actually link it to your existing website or you can embed it, which is what you did to your website. So there's a couple of options that we provide. Kind of. It's literally copy and paste.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it is.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: It was very structure to that. So it's not, it's not a lot of work. And we have a great support team to help guide anyone through this. So we make it as easy as possible.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: It was beside the full time of going through and picking and choosing and looking at all the cool things and then going back and going, who else can I recommend? Because there's so many good products out there that, that are, are.
And mostly what I love about this is how it's different also.
And you're not just seeing the same things that are being Sold at every, every store or on Amazon or Chewy. I mean you're, you're really able to select more boutique style.
That's what it felt like to me was this was more boutique than yeah, huge retail. And I think for a lot of luxury or high end or people who are trying to have that appearance, this is phenomenal for. Because it gives you that feel.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And the brands that we have on, you know, we have a lot of startup, you know, smaller brands and brand manufacturers that are really amazing, they just are just getting started or have chosen not to sell their products on an Amazon or Chewy or big box store because they want to kind of maintain the, you know, the size that they're at. And, but that doesn't mean that they're less of a product. They're amazing brands and amazing products. And so that is a huge thing because if you think about it, if you go to a lot of the big box stores, you have homogenous products, you have the same brand and the same products.
And the ease of shop is you're able to introduce your clients to new things that they maybe is going to be their new favorites that they didn't even know about. And they probably would have never found it, never discovered that product that's been so helpful for them and their pet if it weren't for you. And so that's a key. And like I said that you can reach out to a lot of the brands and ask for samples or buy a sample directly from your own site and gain commission on it, which is great. And so that, that's the key is to really experiment and try different things and introduce new stuff to your clients.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So I just want to clarify so that. Because one thing we didn't say is how this sets up and how this benefits a business that's not selling retail. So do you want to talk about that for a minute?
[00:42:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So a couple benefits to shop. Number one is it's actually free to create an account. We don't charge a monthly subscription.
It's completely free to sign up, create an account, build your online store, launch it.
You can launch and sell any of the products and brands within shop.
The way we get paid is we get 15% of your commission payout. That's it. So we make money only when you make money.
So that's for starters. And then on top of that you may earn a percentage of the sale and the percentage of the sale could range from 15 to 30%. Some brands are actually have a super high commission rate. So, so there's a lot of benefits is like there's no upfront costs, you can sell products and you are able to earn incremental revenue without the outlay
[00:43:30] Speaker A: of capital, which is so great that, that's the, the beauty of this is you're not paying out of pocket for retail, you're not storing it. You're able to pick what you want for your people or for your customers. So you have to know your client well to know what they want.
And part of that is you're getting a commission back from it. Which when Michelle says you get part of that back, you're making that money off of yourself as well when you buy off your stores. So share it with your family.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
Push it to everybody during Christmas.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Not do that.
Amazon does not do that.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: That's very true.
Yeah. And I think at the end of the day, if you look at how people are buying things now, they're actually looking for the human guided experience. If you look at how products have been discovered, if you look at the past 50 or 60 years, how products are discovered and how brands are discovered, right now we're at this age where people are looking for that human guided discovery discovery. That's why TikTok shop is so popular. Yes, Tic Tac Shop is a platform and technology, but it's a person that's talking about the product and that's how finding them. And so if you think about it as a pet professional, you're also providing that human guided discovery too. But it's an in person discovery rather than kind of a Digital Online on TikTok or Instagram. So yeah, you know, it's really what we're doing is kind of just bringing back to the fold and empowering the pet professional to be able to, to do that as well.
[00:45:11] Speaker A: And that makes a really good point because people like to feel special and customers like to feel taken care of. And when you can open up your laptop or and you're checking a client out and be like, I noticed this or oh, I notice our storefront just got a really new cool toy in. Your dog, should be the first one to get that.
You can add those things and make it part of your process of checking in and checking out.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
[00:45:49] Speaker A: And that's so easy.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the key is that the key of the platform is to make it an extension of what you're already doing. Yeah. You know, if you add the link to your storefront on your website, on social media, on the post service, email, that oftentimes you can automate that, right? You, you know, a lot of times or if someone books an appointment, they're like, hey, by the way, you know an automated email where they get hey, by the way, you know that I have an online store of my favorite and curated products right here for you to buy. You know, you don't have to. It doesn't have to be super labor intensive. It's just looking at for all the ways that things that you're already doing and where can you be adding that component in to just generate awareness that hey, you now sell products and these are recommended by you.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: I think you brought a lot to this.
Hopefully this has been a great episode. I mean this is new, it's innovative, it's different from anything else out there. And it's an opportunity for other businesses to be able to have their foot in the door on some of these things too that they didn't think was possible.
We have a couple minutes left, but I want you to really quick. What is. Where can we find you one more time and what is one key takeaway that you want people to really go?
That's them.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: So where you can find me is shop.
I have a bunch of websites around Shop, so that's the main one. The other site is shop app.com if you are watching and are interested in bringing shop to other networks or other industries.
And in terms of. Yes, which is key because we are starting to expand to other markets even though our main business is in pet, the functionality of shop, that can be applied in a lot of different areas.
And then what's my one takeaway in terms of shop or what would you
[00:47:59] Speaker A: like everyone to know that's listening today?
Give us one good last.
You need this.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: My last thing is when I talk to pet pros, they, they, I get it. They don't want to come across as salesy, you know, and all that stuff. But think about sales is a service.
That's the one thing I say all the time is don't think about sales as something that the client and you providing that level of care and curation and time. I mean Dara, you put in a lot of energy to curating your storefront. That's a service that you provided to the client. And so don't be afraid of that and make sure that you promote that and share it with other people.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: Perfect.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: I think that that's something that you can be taken in a lot of aspects of running a business.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: Yep, very true. Well, thank you so much for being on, for talking about this.
This has been the business of pet care. I was joined by Michelle Huey. And you know what? To everyone, adding revenue should never mean adding more work.
This is a great way that you can support your expertise, protect your clients, and fit everything the way your business actually operates. We'll see you next time on the business of Pet care.
