Gourmet products and e-commerce driving pet food industry

A chameleon displays at a pet food and necessities fair in Beijing. [Photo/VCG]

Pet owners are picky about not only food but sales channels. These days, they prefer online shopping.

Simba's master Li explained that although pet stores are more reliable, they do not always have as many choices as online retailers.

Pet food e-shops have a strong potential for growth, and may well emerge as the second-largest distribution channel after physical shops, said Euromonitor in its latest pet food market report.

In fact, just like Paopao, other local pet food brands such as Bridge PetCare are seeing their sales grow on e-commerce websites such as Tmall.com and JD.com.

"E-commerce is driving the boom in pet foods," said He from Nestle. "Pet food has become one of the fastest-growing categories online next to infant and baby nutrition."

Mars Petcare, which has already teamed up with leading e-commerce platforms such as JD, Tmall, Yihaodian and Amazon, expects to invest more money in online channels and accelerate research in pet owners' shopping behavior.

"By providing customized product portfolios for online channels, we collected big data that helped us better understand consumers, and boost our growth in China," said Fang from Mars.