If you live with a pet, at some point, you’ve probably had the terrible experience of finding some injury, illness, or ingestion happening to your beloved furry friend, late at night, when your regular veterinary office is closed. Dogs choke on bones or eat a bag of chocolate wrapped in foils; cats chew on plants that might be toxic to them; and any pet can suddenly and unexpectedly appear ill. Those occasions are stressful and worrisome, and the associated demands have prompted the development of a service innovation that allows pet parents to contact a veterinarian virtually, at any time of the day or night.

Noting the emergence of this novel service (which parallels similar developments in human telehealth service provision), together with the massive growth in the market for pet-related products, various retailers are seeking to become synonymous with pet care for their customers. The U.S. pet market is worth an estimated $124 billion, and about half of that, or $65 billion, involves services for pets. Both of these sectors grew massively during the pandemic, as homebound families added more pets to their households. But the markets also have continued to grow, reflecting consumer trends that lead more and more people to consider their pets’ needs just as critical as their own.

Thus, Walmart has added a televet option as part of its Walmart+ subscription service. Those customers who enroll in Walmart+—which represents the retailer’s competitive response to Amazon Prime—may also receive a year’s free access to Pawp, a virtual vet service. The offer is generous, considering that Walmart+ currently costs $98 annually, and a separate annual membership to Pawp is $99. The offer represents an extension of Walmart’s existing pet-focused offerings, including its partnership with Rover, a platform for finding pet sitters; its installation of VetIQ Petcare clinics in some stores to provide in-person veterinary services; and its PetRx collaboration that gives customers access to more than 300 prescription medications for their pets.

Not to be outdone, the online pet retailer Chewy offers free virtual access to veterinarians, for quick questions, during limited hours of the day. If they want an extended visit, Chewy members can pay $20 for a 20-minute, in-depth interaction with a doctor. As an online pet pharmacy, PetMeds already relied on digital connections with consumers, but it also has added a partnership with the Vetlive service to provide telehealth visits.

Such efforts are driven not only by retailers’ desire to access the massive and growing market of pet owners but also by the needs of those consumers. Currently, there are insufficient veterinarians to service all the pets in the United States. Especially in rural areas, people might lack access to in-person vets not just late at night but anywhere in their area. For them, virtual visits represent a meaningful and necessary channel.

Yet medical experts also caution that virtual visits cannot replace in-person care. When the patient cannot describe its symptoms, a trained veterinarian generally needs to perform a physical examination to arrive at an accurate diagnosis. But if virtual visits are the only option, for panicked and worried consumers and their unhappy pets, they represent a significant value—which retailers are only too happy to provide for them.

 

Discussion Questions

1. What other types of retailers or service providers might compete in this market? For example, should existing veterinary hospitals expand into virtual services? Could Amazon start offering them too, to compete with Walmart?
2. Perform a SWOT analysis of the pet medical services market.

Sources: George Anderson, “Is Walmart Barking Up the Right Tree with TeleVet Service?” Retail Wire, May 23, 2023; Kim Souza, “The Supply Side: A $65 Billion Market Draws More Retailers into Pet Services,” Talk Business & Politics, April 29. 2023, https://talkbusiness.net/2023/04/the-supply-side-a-65-billion-market-draws-more-retailers-into-pet-services/; Gabrielle Fonrouge, “Walmart Will Offer Pet Telehealth in Latest Bid to Compete with Amazon,” CNBC, May 22, 2023