New Research Finds Pet Food sales on Amazon Reached an Estimated $1B in 2018, up 20% YoY

BOSTON, Feb. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- According to online sales measurement from Edge by Ascential, Pet Food sales on Amazon.com reached an estimated $1B in sales in 2018, up 20% compared to 2017. In a previous report, Edge by Ascential found that the Pet Food & Feeding Supplies category accounted for more than half of all Pet sales on Amazon in the US with an estimated $365M in Q3 2018, nearly 6 times the size of the next largest category in Pet Products.

According to brand measurement calculations from Edge's Market Share solution, the top five Pet Food brands (and their share of total pet food sales) on Amazon.com for 2018 are:

1. BLUE BUFFALO (11%)
2. PURINA (9%)
3. HILL'S (8%)
4. WELLNESS (6%)
5. GREENIES (5%)

"Blue Buffalo's continued top-selling status illustrates how important it is for brands to incorporate in their packaging what consumers are looking for: healthier pet foods. Blue Buffalo's top seller contains the keywords 'Protection Formula' and 'Natural' in the title," explained Pete Andrews, Director of Insights at Edge by Ascential. "The brand includes in-depth content on their product detail pages along with complete ingredient lists, nutritional information, numerous customer reviews and peer-answered questions. The Blue Buffalo brand understands how important community is to the pet owner, whether they are shopping online or in-store. By encouraging consumer interaction on Amazon, brands can recreate some of the interactivity that pet owners value from brick-and-mortar stores."

Other top performing brands on Amazon in 2018 like #2 Purina (up 13% YoY), #10 Rachael Ray (up 27% YoY) and #6 Fancy Feast (up 17% YoY) demonstrate that pet owners are choosing brands with the right combination of pet nutrition and shopper value. Brands that lost market in 2018 took their customer loyalty for granted ? for example, Taste of the Wild, which discontinued some of its most popular 15-lb and 30-lb bags and replaced them with 14-lb and 28-lb bags but kept the same prices, dropped out of the top 10 and lost more than 20% market share in 2018.

"Amazon's own label Wag, launched halfway through 2018, brought in almost $2 million in sales in 2018, a negligible share in the current Pet Food category. Not long after its Wag launch, Amazon began offering its dry dog food under the Solimo private brand as well. Much of the on-page content is nearly identical but Solimo actually offers more A+ content and a cheaper equivalent to Wag," explains Andrews. "Whether this is an A/B test on Amazon's part to identify the effects of small product differences on sales or a transition away from Wag is yet to be determined ? but it does suggest that Amazon is not yet ready to challenge major pet food brands head-on while they still gather experimental data."

For information about how brands and retailers can win in an ecommerce-driven world, visit www.ascentialedge.com to learn more about Edge by Ascential's comprehensive ecommerce solutions: Market Share, Digital Shelf, Price + Promotion, Retail Insight and Advisory + Education.

About Edge by Ascentialtm
Formerly Brand View, Clavis Insight, One Click Retail and PlanetRetail RNG, Edge by Ascentialtm delivers some of the industry's most accurate and actionable sales-driving data, insights and advisory solutions for global brands and retailers looking to win in today's ecommerce-driven world. Our solutions enable the world's top brands and retailers to implement strategies that help maximize revenue growth; optimize product listings; increase sales faster than the category and the competition; and drive margin growth with pricing and promotions. Our weekly, daily and real-time data-driven insights (including online Sales and Share measurement, Digital Shelf performance, Price & Promotions monitoring and Retail Insights intelligence), coupled with a wide range of customized advisory and education services, give our clients a comprehensive and competitive advantage across the entire landscape online and around the globe.

For more information about how your company can gain the advantage, visit www.ascentialedge.com.

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SOURCE Edge by Ascential