Pierre: The head peep is back from Global Pet Expo. She keeps saying her feet hurt. We don’t understand. Didn’t she just sit around and do this all day?
Head Peep: Actually, I didn’t. While you guys were sleeping it off all day, I was walking around the huge pet expo. It was pretty amazing. They said that if you walked the perimeter of the show, it was a mile, and if you walked all of the aisles, it was four miles full of companies with products for all kinds of animals.
Trends I noticed:
- There are a dizzying number of foods marketing themselves as natural. it’s great that there are so many options, but it has to be confusing to consumers to know which is the best to pick for their cats.
- Aesthetics matter! My favorite beautiful design from the show was the Astoria scratcher from Architect Pets, but there are brands I who used to make nothing but molded plastic bowls a few years ago who are now making products from higher quality materials in noticeably higher end looks.
- Technology is everywhere. From ways to see and interact with your cats while you are away to doors and even bowls that recognize your cat’s microchip, companies are using technology to help us with our cats in really interesting ways.
- There are lots and lots of calming products hitting the market now. Mostly supplements, but also coats or wraps. I imagine that a lot of this is due to the huge success of the Thundershirt, and it’s interesting to see that even though that success came primarily for a dog product, there are new things showing up for cats in that market, too.
Other things I noticed:
- There is still an ongoing inequality between the number of dog products vs. cat products. Yes, I know that there are more dollars spent on dog products vs cat products, but of there were nearly 5 new dog products for every new cat product. That was a little disappointing. Come on, manufacturers! Spoiled kitties are out counting on you!
- I met some wonderful small companies selling wonderful cat products who were totally clueless about cats. Some of them admitted the didn’t even own cats! I’m so glad they’re making products for the cat market anyhow, but that surprised me.
Totally awesome stuff:
- I met several other cat bloggers for the first time: Tamar from I Have Cat, Deb from Chronicles of Zee and Zoey, Ingrid from The Conscious Cat, and Jodi from Holistic and Healthy Cats by Jodi Z. The opportunity to spend time with other cat bloggers (and some dog bloggers, too!) was fantastic.
- I discovered really innovative products from small companies I never would have heard of on my own. Some of them are tiny companies with great ideas I really hope will succeed because I think they’ll make our kitties lives a little better.
- Several booths had adoptable dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens, and social media at the end of the show was abuzz with stories of how they were adopted by expo attendees and headed to new forever in various parts of the US… and in at least one instance, outside the country!
The whole experience was great. I’m now so tired, I don’t think I can even wave Da Bird around.
Pierre: Good help is so hard to find. I hope you at least brought us some swag.
Newton: She did! I’ll check that out and report back on it later.
