It was sold out as soon as it was launched online, and many sellers expanded overseas with this super product!

It is an indisputable fact that competition in the pet market is becoming increasingly fierce, but there is another rapidly emerging sub-sector in the pet economy, that is, smart pet products. SkyQuest data shows that by 2028, the global pet technology market is expected to be worth US$17.57 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 19%.

The domestic market is constantly involuted, but the international market has unlimited business opportunities. Batch after batch of pet brands choose to go overseas. According to incomplete statistics, in the past three years, dozens of brands of smart pet products have been launched overseas, and they have occupied a considerable market share.

From automatic cat litter boxes to automatic water dispensers to automatic feeders, these pet brands have successfully marketed them overseas and have achieved good sales. However, due to the serious homogeneity of products, no absolute leader has yet emerged, so there are still opportunities for sellers who want to enter the market.

The product was sold out as soon as it was launched, and many sellers successfully entered overseas markets with this product.

The smart cat litter box is such an inconspicuous small product that has allowed many brands to break the highest sales records when they go overseas, and has also gained a wave of loyal users overseas.

In 2021, PETKIT, a leading domestic pet brand, launched its "smart cat litter box" on Indiegogo for the first time, and set the highest sales record for smart cat litter boxes on Indiegogo with a good result of over one million US dollars.

You may think that this is just an isolated case, but it is not.

During the epidemic, sales of pet products have exploded, and several brands including Guaibao, Pety, and Yuanfei Pet have made a lot of money overseas. After the epidemic, a group of companies focusing on smart pet products have also sprung up.

2022 seems to be the first year of the rise of smart pet brands. Players including Furbulous, HHOLOVE, and Traini were all established in this year. Although they have been established for a short time, it does not prevent them from thriving in the overseas smart pet field.

Furbulous, a brand that focuses on smart cat litter boxes, broke the highest crowdfunding record for pet products on the North American crowdfunding platform Indiegogo that year. With more than 2,100 orders and sales of more than $800,000, Furbulous successfully made its first move in the overseas "cute pet circle". Pidan, founded in 2016, also quickly opened up the pet supplies market with its first hit product, the "Igloo Cat Litter Box" .

The traditional pet products field is becoming increasingly crowded, and the growth rate may be slowing down or even going downhill, but the growth rate of the smart pet products field is extremely obvious and is also favored by more people.

In the United States, nearly 60% of pet owners regard their pets as their own children. When they do not have enough time to accompany their pets, more pet owners will choose to buy smart products to ensure their pets' living needs. It is understood that in the United States alone, more than 50% of American adults have purchased smart devices for their pets, while the proportion of this group in Europe is close to 70%.

Among them, the most popular one is the cat litter box, or smart cat toilet. Ordinary cat litter boxes on the market often have odors and need to replace cat litter in time, but smart cat litter boxes can not only free the pet's hands, but also reduce odors. For pet owners, it can be said to be the best of both worlds.

Searching for the term "smart cat litter box" on Amazon , most of the brands listed in the category are Chinese brands, including PETKIT, CATLINK, PetSafe, Pidan, etc., and their sales in the past month have exceeded 1,000. Take PETKIT's smart cat litter box as an example. It has automatic garbage removal and air purification functions, a score of 3.9, 3,118 ratings, and a price of $599. Its sales in the past month were over 2,000.

When searching for the term "cat litter box" on Google Trends , the popularity in the United States has been hovering between 50-100 for the past three months, and it even topped 100 on October 23. Related terms such as "litter box" and "cat litter" have been surging, and even the search volume for the term "petivity smart litter box" has soared by 750%.

According to my observation, many pet brands that have gone overseas have basically involved in the cat litter box product, such as PETKIT and Furbulous mentioned in our previous article. Among them, Furbulous not only made its first move overseas with the cat litter box, but also won strategic financing in February.

"It Economy" is booming overseas, and these smart pet products are more popular

In fact, it is not just Furbulous. Horman Technology, which focuses on smart pet products, also won nearly 100 million yuan in Series C financing in 2023. With capital investment slowing down and financing enthusiasm declining, the fact that the two major smart pet product companies can get financing is enough to show the future investment direction of capital.

Compared with domestic products and brands that are not as popular and do not particularly meet consumer needs, it is obvious that a number of brands are more willing to focus on overseas markets.

According to GLobalPETS data, North America ranks first in the pet industry, with 67% of American households owning pets. The number of pet adoptions in Asia and Europe is also growing steadily, which in turn drives the growth of the global pet economy market, which is expected to reach US$350 billion by 2027.

In the production of pet products, compared with a number of overseas brands, Chinese brands are clearly superior due to their supply chain advantages.

With extremely high product iteration rate, relatively cheap price and good user experience, Chinese brands have defeated a number of overseas brands as soon as they went overseas. For example, the smart cat litter box from Furbulous, the smart feeder and smart water dispenser from Horman Technology were sold out as soon as they were launched overseas.

In the pet category, not only smart litter boxes, but also many smart pet products have become popular overseas.

The smart feeder launched by Petnet can feed pets at regular intervals and in fixed quantities; the remote monitoring cameras of the Pawbo series allow owners to interact with their pets through video; HHOLOVE, a cross-border smart pet products brand created by the original team of DingTalk, created the first crowdfunding result of the platform's pet category with its smart companion robot O Sitter for cats in 2023. It can not only feed pets automatically at regular intervals, but is also equipped with a high-definition pet camera, so pet owners can remotely view, interact and feed their pets at any time.

The trash can has an automatic cleaning function, and the collar has a GPS tracking function. It can be said that in modern society, there is nothing that Chinese sellers cannot make, except what you can't think of.

A lot of innovation in pet product research and development has also developed more subdivided categories. For example, pet wipes are essentially wipes used by pets after going to the toilet. There are currently hundreds of brands sold on Amazon, and some hot-selling products can reach sales of 10K; pet toothpaste, pet oral hygiene is obviously nothing new. In the past five years, the search volume of "Cattoothpaste" has increased by 147%. However, compared with pet wipes, the popularity and sales of pet toothpaste are slightly lower.

As the global pet economy continues to heat up, the demand for related products will inevitably grow. Relevant sellers can also take pet demand as a starting point, learn from the experience of successful sellers, and occupy their own place in the overseas market.

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