Sales of pet treats, toys and pet accessories are predicted to top record levels this festive season.
Pet spending in general is up year on year according to data by consumer insight platform, Vypr, and this shows no sign of slowing down in the run up to Christmas. Spend is set to top £918M among the 38M* pets that Brits own, 5% increase on what was predicted last year.**
Pet owners nationwide were recently asked if they would buy their pet a present this year and how much they would spend. The results are surprising as it’s not just pampered pooches and mollycoddled moggies who will get a gift from Santa.
74% of consumers who own an insect or arachnid will be gifting their pet and 68% of horse owners will be taking gifts to the stables for Christmas Day mucking out in 2023. Reptiles and lizards come last in the list, but still a high proportion of 56% of pet owners will buy them something for Christmas.
Surprisingly it’s bird owners who will spend the most of their feathered friends with 28% spending more than £30+. Almost a third of dog owners (27%) will splash out the same amount and cat owners are even lower at 23%. This is compared to 17% of pet owners overall, taking into account all the other species of pet owner surveyed, spending over £30.
Top five pets most likely to receive a gift:
- Dog – 77%
- Cat – 62%
- Insect or arachnid – 74%
- Horse – 68%
- Bird = fish – 63%
Top five pets to have the most money (£30+) spent on them:
- Birds – 28%
- Dog – 27%
- Insects and arachnids – 25%
- Cat – 24%
- Fish – 16%
Ben Davies, founder of Vypr, commented: “Recent insight from our database of 70k consumers revealed that, despite the cost of living, our pets have never been more part of the family. A third of Brits are spending more on their pet in 2023 than in 2022 and only 13% of consumers said they were spending less. This equates to £20 every single week on their pets throughout the year. 4% of owners spend more than £100 every week and surprisingly, considering their size, insect or arachnid owners are likely to spend the most per week.
“As a nation we own 38M* pets and the additional Christmas sales will help to generate a staggering £918M for the UK economy.
“Pet owners seem to be looking for smaller gifts with toys topping a dog’s wish list (40%), treats coming a close second (39%) and Christmas stockings (16%) in third. Cats have similar requests for Santa with treats most popular (37%), toys (23%) and catnip for a chilled Christmas at 17%.”
The research was carried out by Vypr. Its total database of 70,000 consumers was developed for businesses to understand consumer behaviour quickly.
