Visual Merchandising and Store Design | VMSD.com

Big box retailers don’t have to be impersonal and unresponsive.

By Steve Kaufman

I recently wrote an article about trends and design elements in the pet supply retailing sector, to appear in the July issue of VMSD. The evidence seemed to be that the small local retailers were reinventing the category, offering personal service and knowledgeable advice to a market seeking reassurance from their retailers about the infinite choices available in food, supplies, accessories, etc. “While the big boxes offer lots of merchandise and low prices but have ceded the personal service to the smaller local operators.”

But not always! I was recently looking for a crate to take my two small dogs on an airplane flight. My two shopping choices in the neighborhood are the national big box, PetSmart, and the local boutique, Three Dog Bakery.

I expected the people at Three Dog Bakery to have less merchandise but more knowledge. And I expected PetSmart to have aisles and aisles of merchandise and good prices. What I didn’t expect at PetSmart was the doggie hospital. Or the grooming service. Or the adoption department. Or the day-care facility. Or the charming dog hotel. Or, by the way, the 30 minutes of unhurried advice I got from the sales associate, who’s also a dog breeder and frequently flies animals around the world – sometimes under the seat in front of her, sometimes in the cargo section.

And what did I get from the local boutique owner? Lots of passion and strong opinions, to be sure – in fact, inflexible opinions. “We don’t carry dog crates,” he said, “because I don’t believe in them. Dogs should not be crated up and forced to undergo all kinds of sudden changes in air pressure and cabin temperature.”

“But dogs are flown all the time, aren’t they?” I asked.

“Dogs are fed Ken-L Ration all the time, too,” he snapped. “Doesn’t make it a good thing.”

And if I have no choice? “Put ’em in your car and drive wherever you’re going,” he said. “That’s what I do.”

We all love our dogs, and want to know the retailer who supplies us shares that passion. For animal lovers, that passion comes in wanting to protect the helpless little ones from the big, bad world – whether that be puppy mills or toys with toxic paint or tainted dog food from China. But sometimes, too much passion leads to advocacy, which comes across as orneriness and inflexibility – almost pedagogy.

We don’t necessarily expect passion from our big-box national chains, and often are willing to overlook it for better selection or low prices. But this experience at PetSmart also restored my belief that national chains can be smart, resourceful and responsive to their market’s needs.

They’re not all dinosaurs, led by out-of-touch corporate executives surrounded by six layers of insulation. Sometimes they remind us how they got to be the big, successful national chains.