Pet owners are some of the most loyal customers there are. Once a dog does well on a food, or a cat finally likes a treat, the owner doesn’t want to switch. They want the same thing, on time, every time.
That loyalty is a gift. But only if the store makes reordering easy. Too many pet stores make owners remember, come back, find the product and check out again, every few weeks, forever.
I’m Carson Cobb. I run Shopify stores for growing DTC brands on monthly retainers. Over 6+ years I’ve worked on 50+ Shopify stores, and pet food, treats and supplements share a set of problems that are very fixable.
The problems I see in pet stores
Autoship that doesn’t match the bag
A 4 lb bag lasts a small dog a long time. A 24 lb bag lasts a big dog a few weeks. Two dogs halve that. Yet most pet stores offer the same autoship options on every size: every 30 days, take it or leave it.
Owners end up with too much food, skip a few times, then cancel. I set autoship frequencies from bag size, serving size and your real reorder gaps, and give owners easy ways to skip, pause, change frequency or swap the size before they ever think about cancelling. I work in Recharge, Skio and native Shopify selling plans. My Shopify subscriptions page covers how I set these up, and my Recharge vs Skio vs Loop comparison helps if you’re choosing an app.
Trial packs that lead nowhere
Switching a pet’s food is a big decision. A trial pack or sample bag lowers the risk, and a lot of brands sell one. Then the trial arrives, the pet loves it, and there’s no clear next step.
I connect trial packs to the full size product and to autoship. That can be a post purchase offer, a Klaviyo sequence timed to when the trial runs out, or a starter offer that rolls into autoship. No happy trial customer should have to go looking for how to reorder.
Bundles that don’t fit how owners shop
Pet owners buy in combinations. Food and treats. A supplement and a dental chew. A puppy starter kit. But most stores sell each item alone and hope the owner adds the rest.
I set up bundles that make sense for your catalog, track inventory per component, work with autoship, and show the savings clearly. With Rebuy or the theme, I show the right add on on the product page and in the cart, based on what owners actually buy together.
Sold out products that kill the sale
When your best food or treat sells out, the damage is bigger than one lost order. A pet owner who can’t get their usual food goes and buys something else, and their pet might stay on it.
I make sure sold out never means dead end:
- A back in stock signup on the product page that feeds into Klaviyo.
- A follow up email the moment stock returns.
- A related product or preorder where it makes sense.
- A plan for autoship orders that fall during a stockout, so owners hear from you before their order is affected.
Product pages that don’t answer owner questions
Owners want to know what’s in it, how much to feed, whether it’s right for their pet’s age or size, and whether other owners had good results. Most pages answer some of that in a long paragraph.
I rebuild product pages for mobile with the key answers up top, feeding guides and ingredients in clear sections, and reviews where doubt shows up. I use Shopify metafields and metaobjects for things like life stage, size, protein source and feeding amounts, so your team can update them once and keep every page consistent. For pet supplements, I build clear places for the claims your team has approved. I don’t write or approve claims myself.
Slow pages on mobile
Most pet traffic comes from phones. Pet stores tend to collect apps for reviews, quizzes, subscriptions, loyalty and popups, and each one adds weight. I audit every script, cut what isn’t earning its place, and compress images until the product page loads fast.
What I do for pet brands
I usually focus on these areas in roughly this order:
- Tracking, speed and key pages. Clean numbers and fast mobile product pages.
- Autoship. Frequencies per size, easy skip and swap, and a cancel flow that offers real options.
- Trial to full size paths. Every trial pack connected to a next step.
- Bundles and the cart. Combinations that raise order value.
- Sold out handling. Back in stock signups, follow up flows and a plan for autoship orders.
- Email. Reorder reminders timed to how fast a pet goes through the product. More on my Klaviyo email page.
If you sell supplements for people too, my supplement brands page covers the overlap. For the deeper page and testing work, see my conversion optimization page.
Proof
I keep client names private, but the numbers are real. Across my work, rebuilt pages average a 2.1x conversion lift, and I’ve supported more than $40M in client revenue for growing brands. On one subscription brand, subscribe and save opt in went from 7% to 32% after fixing the offer, the widget and the default selection. On one supplement store, mobile load time dropped from 7.9s to 2.1s and conversion rose 24%.
How to work with me
Most pet brands start with a Store Sprint for $1,500 one time. It’s one week. I audit the store and fix the highest impact problems that same week. If you continue on a retainer, the $1,500 is credited toward it.
From there, the plan I recommend is Operator at $3,000/mo. I run the store with you month to month. For brands that want one person to own the channel, there’s Head of Ecommerce at $5,500/mo. See my fractional head of ecommerce page.
Every plan is listed on the pricing section.
Book a 20 minute intro call
If pet owners love your product but the store makes them work to reorder, let’s fix that. Book a 20 minute intro call, tell me what you sell and how autoship is set up today, and I’ll tell you where I’d look first.