The global market scale exceeds 100 billion, and the number of enterprises has skyrocketed fourfold. The path for pet product brands to go global | G

Currently, pet consumption has moved beyond the "short - term pandemic stimulus" and shifted towards a long - term growth paradigm driven by demographic changes, the upgrading of emotional needs, and technological empowerment. The overall growth of the "pet economy" is remarkable, with the global market size exceeding $150 billion. Among them, the pet supplies category is becoming the second - largest growth track after pet food. Euromonitor data shows that from 2015 to 2021, the global pet supplies market size increased to $44.36 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.7%.

The rapidly growing market is attracting more Chinese enterprises to enter. Qichacha data shows that as of the end of April 2025, the number of domestic enterprises related to the pet economy has reached 4.474 million, more than three times that of 2021. Among them, over 77% of the enterprises were established less than three years ago. According to the overseas pet consumption trends released by Taobao's overseas expansion, during this year's overseas 618 promotion, more than 30,000 pet merchants participated in Tmall's 618 overseas expansion. Among them, the cross - border turnover of more than 1,000 merchants doubled year - on - year.

The sudden increase in players has greatly enriched the overseas supply and is reshaping the market competition pattern. On the one hand, it has driven down the overall market price, especially in the European and American markets dominated by high - unit - price products. On the other hand, with the improvement of technology and manufacturing levels, pet supplies are also evolving towards intelligence.

Facing such an overseas market environment, different types of pet supplies enterprises have different feelings.

New brands emerging under the new consumption trend in the past few years have quickly opened up the Southeast Asian market through their expertise in e - commerce channel operation and social media marketing. However, they are facing dual challenges in the mature European and American markets: the brand barriers of local industry giants and the price competition triggered by new domestic players.

More enterprises that have just entered the pet track across industries are rapidly seizing overseas market share with more cost - effective products. At the same time, they are also actively learning from leading brands, accumulating an understanding of the market, and trying to make the leap towards brand building.

Facing an as - yet - undefined market pattern, the common understanding among overseas - going enterprises is that building brand awareness by accumulating user word - of - mouth through products is the only way to stay in the game in the long run.

01 Supply - chain enterprises transitioning from 2B to 2C, and new consumer brands expanding from Southeast Asia to Europe and America

Pet supplies mainly include sub - categories such as leashes, cleaning and grooming products, pet beds and mats, feeding utensils, pet clothing, and pet toys. The overseas expansion paths of pet supplies enterprises can be roughly divided into two categories according to their capabilities and advantages:

One type is supply - chain enterprises with production capabilities but a lack of understanding of the overseas market and brand - building capabilities. These enterprises often start with "manufacturing going global" and provide products for large retail platforms such as Walmart and Amazon, as well as large pet supplies chain supermarkets like Chewy, Petsmart, and Petco through OEM/ODM contract manufacturing.

Tianyuan Pet is a typical representative of such enterprises. In 2000, Tianyuan Pet began to participate in various international exhibitions to develop international customers. While promoting its ODM/OEM business, it also cultivated its own brand. Since 2014, Tianyuan Pet has successively acquired pet brands in the United States and Germany and established "Japan Pet Alliance Co., Ltd." in Japan to be responsible for the business in the Japanese and Korean markets. At the same time, Tianyuan Pet has also laid out cross - border e - commerce platforms such as Amazon and built an independent website as a display channel for its products and brand.

In November 2022, Tianyuan Pet was listed on the ChiNext of the A - share market, becoming the sixth pet enterprise listed on the A - share market in China. The financial report shows that in 2024, Tianyuan Pet's overseas revenue was 1.332 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 18.4%, accounting for 48.2% of the total revenue. Currently, Tianyuan Pet is further increasing its overseas investment, setting up production bases in Vietnam and Cambodia and establishing a holding subsidiary in the United States to carry out overseas warehouse business.

To give full play to their supply - chain advantages, these enterprises often choose the North American region, which has the largest market size, as their first target. They quickly increase their market share with cost - effective products, and Southeast Asia is mainly used as a production base. However, in the shadow of tariff conflicts in the past two years, some enterprises have been forced to shift their market focus to Japan or Europe.

The other type of overseas - going pet supplies enterprises are mainly new consumer brands emerging with the rise of new consumption, such as Petkit, Catlink, HomYad, BirdTalk, Petwant, PAPIFEED, etc.

Different from supply - chain enterprises, new consumer brands start their overseas expansion from neighboring Southeast Asian countries. Amy, the person - in - charge of a leading domestic pet supplies brand, said, "Although the market size of Southeast Asia is smaller than that of Europe and America, it is also a blue - ocean market with high - speed growth. There are not many leading enterprises monopolizing the market, so Chinese brands can gain a first - mover advantage with stronger brand capabilities and quickly reach the forefront of the market."

For example, both Petkit and Catlink adopt a light - asset model of cooperating with local agents. The brands provide a stable supply chain and customer service training, and the agents are responsible for local market development and sales. They quickly expand the market through online channels such as Shopee, Lazada, and TikTok.

These new consumer brands also replicate their marketing capabilities overseas and cooperate with local KOLs on social media to expand their brand influence. In 2021, Petkit also launched its intelligent cat litter box PURA MAX on the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, raising over one million dollars while promoting the product.

02 Does price competition drive the intelligent upgrade of pet supplies: a false demand or a real trend?

"Competition in ordinary pet supplies has been extremely fierce in the past few years, and the profit margin has been squeezed very low," said Zhang Jian, the person - in - charge of the operation of Aisen Intelligence. The company started to adopt the strategy of "using technology to avoid price competition" more than two years ago and shifted its R & D focus to "AI +" intelligent pet supplies, hoping to create product differentiation and increase brand awareness and profit margins.

Intelligent pet supplies generally refer to various pet supplies transformed or innovated using intelligent hardware technologies such as Wifi, 5G, AI, and the Internet of Things, including intelligent cat litter boxes, intelligent feeders, intelligent water dispensers, intelligent cameras, and intelligent leashes. According to QY Research statistics, as of 2023, the global sales of intelligent pet supplies reached $4.2 billion. Among them, the United States is the largest pet market in the world, and more than half of American adults have purchased intelligent devices for their pets.

In 2023, Catlink launched five intelligent products and their supporting supplies on the Amazon US site and became the number one in the cat litter box category during the Black Friday period. In 2024, the intelligent bird feeder of the niche brand Birdfy, priced at $199 in a market where most feeders on Amazon are priced between $9.9 and $19.9, made it onto the Amazon best - seller list and achieved monthly sales of millions of dollars.

However, when enterprises entered the intelligent pet supplies track in 2025, they found it was not as profitable as before.

Since the second half of 2024, a large number of factory -贴牌 competitors similar to the products of leading brands have appeared on Amazon, triggering price competition with lower mold - opening costs. A relevant person - in - charge of Catlink once publicly shared that as of October 2024, the number of ASINs of intelligent cat litter boxes on Amazon increased by 160%, but the market share only increased by 63% during the same period. The supply is growing faster than the demand, causing the prices of the top three intelligent cat litter box products on Amazon to drop from around $600 to around $150.

The further squeezing of the price space also reflects that the acceptance of intelligent pet supplies in the overseas market is relatively limited. According to industry insiders' estimates, the penetration rate of intelligent pet supplies with Internet - of - Things attributes in the United States is currently less than 20%.

Zhang Jian told us that after seeing Birdfy's success on Amazon, Aisen Intelligence also launched a subscription - based service for pet health monitoring with the help of AI capabilities, but the sales did not meet expectations. "Although pet - keeping overseas is also developing towards a more refined trend, it is still difficult to compare with the maternal and infant products market."

Zhang Jian found that American users have relatively rough pet - keeping habits. Our American customers are more concerned about whether the products are sturdy and durable, while Japanese customers require the appearance to be delicate and beautiful. However, the intelligent functions are still at a basic level, and the App operation interfaces of local products are extremely simple compared with Chinese products.

Even so, both Zhang Jian and Amy believe that intelligence is an inevitable trend in the development of pet supplies. "At present, consumers are not buying into it because the products are not mature enough to change consumers' perceptions. Just like before the emergence of the iPhone, people were quite satisfied with Nokia. Therefore, enterprises need to make firm and continuous investments and product iterations. In the long run, intelligent products are definitely the trend," Amy said.

03 Weak brand awareness and low repurchase rate: building user awareness through word - of - mouth and service

Although brands such as Petkit, HomYad, and Catlink have formed a certain brand influence and accumulated a large user base in the domestic market, due to the wide coverage and numerous sub - categories of pet supplies, the brand concentration is lower compared with pet food. According to Euromonitor data, in 2021, the CR5 (Concentration Ratio) of the global pet supplies industry was only 15.2%, and the market share of Central Garden & Pet Company, the largest in terms of market size in the United States, was only 3.7%.

The low market concentration has created opportunities for new entrants like Aisen Intelligence. Zhang Jian said, "Pet supplies naturally have weak brand awareness, similar to 3C products like power banks. There are large channel brands like Chewy in the European and American markets, but there has never been a global brand like DJI in the drone field. Therefore, product sales depend more on how to solve consumers' pain points and make consumers think the products are cool while maintaining high cost - effectiveness."

Amy believes that pet supplies can learn from the way maternal and infant products build brands. By creating 1 - 2 explosive products with differentiated innovation, they can form good product word - of - mouth and gradually build brand awareness.

Since pet supplies are durable goods and have a lower repurchase rate than pet food, Amy believes that the customer - acquisition and brand - building method of relying on large - scale marketing investment is not financially viable. "Customers often only buy your products once, and it is unlikely to recoup the profit through subsequent repurchases. If the cost model of a single product is not well - established, high initial customer - acquisition costs may only lead to faster failure. Moreover, exaggerated marketing of product functions and performance is more likely to disappoint users."

Secondly, in the mature pet supplies market, building brand awareness cannot bypass the offline mainstream consumption channels, which is also one of the biggest challenges for Chinese enterprises going global. For example, Japan has a strong sense of protecting local brands. Enterprises that want to enter the pet supplies market must first join the local chamber of commerce or industry association. Zhang Jian suggests that enterprises can obtain local resource empowerment through joint - venture companies and gradually penetrate into offline channels.

After establishing a foothold in the Southeast Asian market, Petkit and Catlink have also started to expand their business to the United States. Different from supply - chain enterprises, new consumer brands, with a stronger sense of their own brands, mainly adopt a self - operated model of building independent websites and are not in a hurry to enter large pet supplies chain supermarkets with high traffic.

"Once the brand influence is truly established, the negotiation conditions with these channels will be different. If we enter now, we can only accept contract manufacturing and very low supply prices, and we won't be able to build real brand capabilities," Amy said.

【Reference Articles】

1. "Analysis of Sub - tracks in the Pet Industry - In - depth Report on the Agriculture, Forestry, Animal Husbandry, and Fishery Industry", Wanlian Securities

2. "An Analysis of the Overseas Expansion Strategy of Domestic Pet Products through the Case of Yuanfei Pet", Hua'an Securities

3. "What's the Secret to Tianyuan Pet's Success with Nearly 2 Billion in Annual Revenue?", Global Pet Industry Overseas Expansion Insights

4. "A Conversation with CATLINK: The Keys to Success in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam", 36Kr Going Global

5. "Rushing Overseas! The Billion - Dollar Intelligent Pet Supplies Track is Flourishing, but is a 'Competition Crisis' Emerging Along the Way? | EBRUN Global Good Products", Yibang Power Network

This article is from the WeChat official account "Hangzhou Qiantang Enterprise Overseas Expansion Service Base", author: Zhejiang Enterprises Going Global, published with Qiantang's authorization.