A recent survey by Pet Parlour has found that more than 70 per cent of its customers have changed their pet spending habits due to cost-of-living pressures.
Pet Parlour is an online pet retailer that launched three years ago with just five products in its inventory and has grown to now stock around 4,500 SKUs, and has a database of around 6,000 customers across Australia.
The survey looked at the number of pets per household, and surprisingly found that 14 per cent of households had more than five pets.
Of those surveyed, 33 per cent said that they were not worried that increased prices would make it difficult for them to afford to feed their pets and only eight per cent weren’t worried about being able to afford medical bills.
Cost-of-living pressures were being felt more strongly in South Australia (77 per cent), while only 68 per cent said they were feeling the pinch in Western Australia.
Customers were asked if they would spend less on their pets in 2023 than they did in 2022, and the results were quite evenly split with 40 per cent agreeing and 35 per cent disagreeing.
NSW agreed the most with this statement with 43 per cent of customers selecting agree or above. At the other end of the scale were Victorians who only selected agree or above in 33 per cent of answers.
Tom Sadler, Founder of Pet Parlour, said that its apparent that people are worried about the increased cost of living and through the survey they wanted to see how it would affect pets.
“The most concerning figures for me are that only 66 per cent of people are worried they will be able to afford to feed their pets and 92 per cent of people are worried about being able to afford their pets medical bills.”
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