Russian grooming salons did not work from March until June 2020 due to coronavirus restrictions. This forced pet owners to look for pets’ coat care solutions.
This is confirmed by the data from Zoomonitor. In April, in Moscow, where the restrictions were the most severe, the demand for grooming accessories increased by 36% compared to April 2019 and reached a peak in May and June, when the number of online search requests for this topic increased by 54% compared to corresponding months last year.
Dog owners had to wash the pets themselves, and trim, and fight with molting, aggravated by restrictions on going outside. 45% of requests were about dog clippers. People also searched for furminators (16%) and paw cleaners (10%).
As for cat owners in Moscow, they endured even longer: in March and April, the demand for cat grooming products was exactly the same compared to previous years. But in May and June, it increased by about 20%. This probably happened because during quarantine people had more time to surf the Internet and learn about care products for cats. In this case we observe the qualitative growth of the market in this segment as a result of improved care culture.
The furminator turned out to be the most essential for cat owners: it comprised the third of all search queries. Another popular searches were for slicker brush (12%), clippers (11%) and nail trimmers (11%).
The dynamics of dog and cat grooming accessories requests in Saint Petersburg completely mimics Moscow, with the only difference being that in March and April the demand for cat accessories was slightly higher (by 11 and 17%, respectively) than last year. The interest in clippers in Saint Petersburg was noticeably lower (only 8% of all requests). Apparently, Saint Petersburg cat owners prefer to comb their cats, rather than solve the fur problem through and through.
In other regions of Russia, the dynamics of demand for grooming products for dogs and cats was generally stable, with a slight increase compared to last year. The exception was some large cities, such as Irkutsk and Tyumen, where the ultimate majority of pet stores were closed. In those places the demand for this group of products on the Internet began to grow explosively in mid-March and has started to decline slightly only by the end of July.
