We Want You to Be America’s Coolest

THE AMERICA’S COOLEST STORES contest entry season is in full swing, and I’ll let you in on a secret: We want you to win. And you. And you. And you, and you.

Fact is, we want everyone to submit an entry that’s so good, our judges will be deadlocked, and we’ll be stymied by what to do with all the winners.

Why? Because sharing America’s coolest pet businesses and the secrets to their success with our readers stands only to make your business better. And yours. And yours. And yours, and yours. (Because even winning, successful businesses never rest and always need an infusion of great ideas and inspiration.)

So we try to help you create a winning entry as best we can. Go to our entry page, petsplusmag.com/ACS, and you’ll find links to pages with step-by-step tips about how to create a winning entry. And feel free to email us at coolstores@petsplusmag.com if those pages don’t answer your questions or assuage your doubts.

And we do hear doubts. Sometimes we hear from business owners who see the stores we’ve already featured in the magazine, and they tell us they don’t believe their store will ever look like that. Well, here’s another secret: America’s Coolest Stores is no beauty contest. Most times the coolest thing about a business is not how it looks but how it’s run or how its staff are trained or how it markets itself.

Those are the aspects we want to hear about, so we can share those stories with our readers — whether those stories appear in the Cool Stores section or elsewhere in the magazine.

The deadline to enter the contest is March 15, and our July/August issue will feature the three top businesses as well as eight honorable mentions whose stories will be told in the regular Cool Stores section of upcoming issues through June 2019.

Head to our entry portal today to get started on your entry. We look forward to seeing your business in the pages of Pets+.

Wishing you the best in business,

Ralf Kircher
Editor-in-Chief, Pets+