Partner Article

Pet supermarket team purring after investment

An online pet supermarket which was set up on the back of the particular needs of a north east entrepreneur’s best friend has gone through the £5m turnover barrier in less than five years - and is now aiming even higher.

www.Pet-Supermarket.co.uk sells products for dogs, cats, fish, birds and other small pets, and has quickly grown to become the UK market leader in the online specialist pet supplies marketplace.

Parent company Viverdi has now secured a new £250,000 investment to help drive the next stage of the company’s development. Part of this progress will involve the development and launch of a full ecommerce website, complete with an account function to allow repeat customers to build up their own user profiles.

Capital will also be used to enable the company to negotiate better purchasing deals with its suppliers through buying stock in larger quantities.

Managing director Mark Berriman founded Pet Supermarket in 2004 when he couldn’t find supplies of the specific dog food that his own chocolate Labrador Charlie needed.

Financial controller Louise Center said: “It’s difficult for any independent retailers like us to compete on price with the supermarkets on the best-known pet brands, but we feel we are able to offer a much better and more personalised service which recognises the particular needs of individual pets.

“The business has continued to move on an upward curve over the last few years, with order values going up month-on-month every single month since we started five years ago, and we’re now looking to accelerate our growth even more quickly.”

Joanne Pratt, investment executive at Evolve Finance, who oversaw the investment, said: “The Pet Supermarket team has succeeded through knowing and providing what their customers want, and have both the market knowledge and investment capital they require to post even better results in the future.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .