The Booming Pet Supplies Market: Is Pet Humanization Leading to Augmented Spending by Owners?

For a lot of people, their pet is part of the family.

And, it turns out, being part of the family comes with a pretty big price tag. According to analysts at Technavio, we’re prepared to spend more on Fido than ever before. Pet humanization—or wanting to provide pets with human-quality products—is generating stunning growth in markets like pet supplies, pet foods, and pet care products.

And providing for a pet isn’t cheap. The info graphic below gives an overview of how pet spending is expected to influence the outlook for pet supplies in the next few years.

Source: Technavio, 2015

What is humanization, and how is it influencing markets?

According to Technavio, pet humanization or personification is when pet owners fulfill the physical and emotional needs of pets by thinking of them as humans (just think of the term ‘fur babies’).

The more affection pet owners feel for their pets, the higher their levels of spending, which is a big factor driving growth in pet-related industries

Source: Technavio, infographics.idlelist, capitalone