U.S. spending on pet supplies rose 6.6 percent last year to reach $19.8 billion, according to the Pet Business Professor blog.
The average household spent $150.62 on supplies in 2018, the blog’s John Gibbons writes. That was an increase from $142.90 the year before.
Pet supplies spending outpaced total pet spending, which grew only 1.9 percent in 2018 to hit $77.13 billion.
Gibbons writes: “The first half of 2018 continued an upturn in Supplies spending which began in the second half of 2016. However, in the second half of the year spending flattened out.”
Prices were a key factor. They started to move up in April and rapidly increased later in the year due to the impact of new tariffs. By December, supplies prices were 3.3% higher than a year earlier, and that “explains the initial growth and pull back in spending, according to Gibbons.
“Since the great recession, spending trends in the Supplies segment have been all about price – the CPI,” he writes. “Although many supplies are needed by Pet Parents, when they are bought and how much you spend is often discretionary.”
He adds: “When prices fall, consumers are more likely to buy more. When they go up, consumers spend less and/or buy less frequently.”
Numbers in the report come from or are calculated using data from the U.S. BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys.