Why is pet instant retail considered a strategic channel rather than a channel supplement?

From the perspective of the current development of pet retail channels, instant retail is often regarded as the digital extension of offline stores or the "last mile" supplement to e-commerce logistics. However, in fact, this cognitive framework is gradually becoming outdated as the industry evolves. A repeatedly verified data point is that there is a very high proportion of emergency and immediate demands in pet consumption - consumers' demands for certainty and immediacy are increasingly surpassing their pursuit of a wide range of choices and absolute low prices, especially as the proportion of 90s and 00s generations owning pets continues to rise. And instant retail precisely seizes the throat of this new demand. Behind this is actually a profound change in consumer mindset: pets are now regarded as family members, and their needs are placed on an equal footing with those of humans. When people's urgent medications can be delivered within minutes, waiting for half a day or a day for pets is gradually becoming unacceptable in terms of both emotion and experience. The subsequent question is, why should instant retail in the pet industry be regarded as a strategic channel rather than a channel supplement?

"The core significance of instant retail for the pet industry lies in empowering small and medium-sized operators, forcing brands and supply chains to reform, and ultimately catalyzing the rebirth of the entire industry's efficiency," a co-founder of a pet instant retail platform told Pet Industry Observer. "This is not just a patchwork of existing retail channels, but a strategic reconstruction of the entire logic of pet product circulation. Its strategic value lies in seizing the 'fastest and most certain' consumption entry point in consumers' minds." In his view, the instant retail channel should no longer be a contributor with negligible online sales or an outlet for clearing out unsold inventory from offline stores. True instant retail is a circulation system of goods and services that directly meets consumers' immediate and certain demands, relying on a physical network within a 3-5 kilometer radius and a digital fulfillment capability of 30-60 minutes. Therefore, redefining the channel status of instant retail is already an urgent matter.

In fact, platform giants and pet brand enterprises with sharp business acumen have long perceived this change. For instance, in the entire instant retail channel system, platform models represented by Meituan Flash Purchase, JD Second Delivery, and Taobao Flash Purchase have become the most widespread form currently. Their core logic is empowerment and connection, that is, the platform provides traffic entry points, instant delivery capabilities, and digital tools to help existing offline pet stores, pet hospitals, and even pet-themed supermarkets "go online". The strategic value of this model lies in the "network effect" and "light start-up". For the platform, each new pet store that connects increases its local life service coverage and enhances user stickiness. For the vast number of small and medium-sized offline pet stores with weak digital capabilities, this is almost a zero-threshold digital transformation solution. They can instantly have an online customer base covering several kilometers around them without having to build their own online teams or complex IT systems. The surging number of pet merchants and orders on the Meituan platform is the best proof of the vitality of this model. However, its challenges are also obvious. There is fierce homogenized competition among merchants on the platform, which can easily lead to price wars. In addition, stores have weak control over products, inventory, and services, making it difficult to standardize the user experience, and brand awareness is more likely to be accumulated on the platform rather than in the stores themselves.

Apart from the platform model, the vertical self-operated model focusing on the depth of professional services and the intelligent unmanned model relying on technology to drive costs and experiences are more diversified forms of instant retail channel development. Among them: if the platform model is about "broadening", then the vertical self-operated model is about "deepening". It is not simply connecting existing stores but reshaping the entire chain from supply chain to fulfillment services based on its own deep understanding of specific demands. Take platforms like Maoqiu Pharmacy and Dingdang Quick Medicine as examples. They are not targeting the ordinary demand for pet snacks and toys, but rather the highly specialized and time-sensitive health and medical needs, which are precisely the weakest links of traditional pet stores and comprehensive platforms. Thus, they have built a differentiated moat. 

Moreover, the intelligent unmanned instant retail model is even more cutting-edge. It attempts to fundamentally reconstruct the "people, goods, and place" of retail through technological means. This type of business usually penetrates high-pet-density communities in the form of pre-positioned warehouses or small unmanned stores. Its revolutionary aspect lies in "dehumanization" and "24/7 operation". Through IoT devices, intelligent product recognition, mobile payment, and remote monitoring, it achieves 24-hour unmanned operation, compressing labor costs to the extreme. At the same time, standardized systems and centralized supply chain management make the single-store model highly replicable. The greater potential of this model lies in its possible role as the ultimate form of "thousands of warehouses, thousands of faces" precision retail and a model for leveraging technology to enhance the efficiency of the offline capillary network. For instance, the intelligent system can dynamically adjust the SKU based on the historical consumption data of different communities, thereby maximizing inventory turnover and floor efficiency.

So, what is the biggest change brought by the instant retail strategic channel to the pet industry at this stage? In the view of the pet industry observer, for hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized pet stores and pet hospitals, instant retail is both a challenge and an opportunity for survival. Because the traditional "sitting merchant" model is limited by physical radius, and the growth of customer flow is weak. But once they are connected to the instant retail platform, their service radius can instantly expand from a few hundred meters to three to five kilometers. The deeper empowerment lies in data-driven refined operation. In the past, store owners relied on experience to purchase goods, often leading to out-of-stock of best-selling items and overstock of slow-moving items. Now, through the platform's backend, store owners can clearly see the consumption preferences of the surrounding communities: which brand of cat litter has the highest repurchase rate? Does the sales of small packages of emergency main food increase sharply on weekends? Which medicines are most frequently searched for at night? And these real-time data will become the "navigation instrument" guiding store selection, inventory optimization, and promotion planning. At the same time, some advanced service providers can even offer intelligent location selection, product selection, and dynamic inventory warning services based on big data for cooperative merchants. Ultimately, successful local merchants will complete a role transformation: they are no longer just sales points, but become "regional pet life service operators" relying on local warehouses and instant delivery capabilities to operate private domain traffic and provide warm services.

For brand owners, the impact brought by instant retail may be structural. For example, traditional brand marketing is "casting a wide net" - pursuing broad market coverage through national advertising and channel distribution. But instant retail requires "grid-based intensive cultivation". Therefore, brands also need to rethink their product matrix. Should they develop more small-sized and emergency-packed products for instant scenarios? For instance, single-use portable cat litter bags, small-sized prescription canned food for gastrointestinal discomfort, or travel pet cleaning kits. These products may not be efficient on traditional shelves, but they might be essential in the search scenarios of instant retail. More importantly, the supply chain must become faster and more flexible. The inventory of instant retail is distributed in hundreds or thousands of local pre-positioned warehouses or stores, and brands need to establish an agile supply chain system that can support high-frequency, small-batch, and multi-point replenishment. This puts unprecedented high demands on the brand's channel inventory management, logistics response speed, and data collaboration capabilities. The relationship between brands and local retail points will also transform from simple wholesale transactions to a deep co-conspiracy based on real-time sales data, with the core being the joint optimization of local inventory and the improvement of sales efficiency. Overall, the penetration of on-demand retail in the pet industry represents a profound transformation that is quietly taking place. On the surface, it changes the speed at which goods reach users, but fundamentally, it reconfigures the relationship between brands and users, the way supply and demand are matched, and the criteria for evaluating the value of offline business assets. Looking further ahead, when the immediate fulfillment of on-demand needs becomes a daily expectation for pet-owning families, any brand or channel that fails to meet this expectation may face the risk of being marginalized.