What you’ll read: We look back at Pets at Home’s web presence from initiation to now.
Pets at Home owes a fair amount of its success to the team’s online and omnichannel initiatives.
With that in mind, we’ll look at how the company’s website has evolved into the powerhouse it is today — starting from pre-ecommerce days.
PetsatHome.com in 2005: Preparing for Ecommerce
In 2005, PetsatHome.com has a well-organized and easily navigable site.
Pet owners can use the header tabs, the dropdown menus, and/or the site’s search feature to search sections of the website. These features — along with the bulleted list of site sections — are present on every page, making one-click navigation possible from anywhere on the site.
That said, the homepage doesn’t add much value and merely offers another way for visitors to navigate to different parts of the site. As we’ll see in future versions of the site, there are much better ways to make use of this space and provide more value to the customer.
As far as site content, PetsatHome.com is already ahead of the game.
For starters, each animal-specific section offers information to help owners care for their pet as best as possible.
That said, Pets at Home missed an opportunity to create further engagement by linking to specific product pages within the “wish lists,” as shown above.
The site also provided information about the company’s fundraising and other charitable initiatives, offering more ways for customers to engage.
Surprisingly, at this time, PetsatHome.com lacked:
- Online ordering capabilities
- Extensive filtering options on product category pages
- Comprehensive information on product pages
All things considered, though, site was on-track to becoming the animal-centric hub it is today.
PetsatHome.com in 2011: A New Look — For Better or Worse
Over the next six years, PetsatHome.com underwent a huge transformation:
While there’s a lot more to the website, it’s distracting for the user. While the homepage looked organized, content isn’t necessarily related and we felt users could have gotten lost without finding what they were looking for.
Still, the headers — which included dropdown menus, themselves — allowed visitors to navigate to specific product category pages with a single click.
Pets at Home’s approach to content evolved in a few ways:
- Multiple sections dedicated to specific aspects of pet care
- Multimedia content offerings
- Frequently-updated blog and other helpful content
They also included a more dedicated approach to showcasing branded initiatives and related content.
Thankfully, their ecommerce side was fully operational — and becamethe most user-friendly part of the site at this time.
As shown above, their product category pages were much more organized and navigable. Product pages offered a more comprehensive look at every product in the store’s catalog.
In now providing a fully-functional ecommerce experience, PetsatHome put the wheels in motion for massive growth moving forward.
PetsatHome.com in 2015: A More Organized Approach
The 2015 version of Pets at Home’s website offered more to visitors in a much more orderly fashion.
The longform homepage style, coupled with carousels and dropdown menus, created a streamlined, focused experience. The dropdown menus offered a bit more than navigational links, as well.
More than just getting visitors more engaged with the company, these experiences might have helped them become better pet owners in a number of ways.
The site also offered tons of information regarding PetsatHome’s veterinary and other such services.
The site’s ecommerce experience was similar to that of the previous iteration, but with minor aesthetic improvements. Product pages offered more in terms of information, but the overall structure remained unchanged.
One area of the ecommerce experience that improved, though, was in the browsability of product category pages. Specifically, the addition of filters made it easier to find information.
Overall, this latest iteration of PetsatHome’s website offered a cohesive and comprehensive digital experience.
PetsatHome.com Today: Everything We Expected — and More
It should be no surprise that the modern version of PetsatHome.com is the brand’s best digital effort to date.
The homepage maintains a longform appearance, with liberal use of whitespace and framing to keep sections organized and separated. This allows the team to give proper attention to the various aspects of their digital experience, whereas in previous versions certain content was relegated to mere footnotes on the homepage.
Pets at Home’s content marketing team has been busy as of late, creating a breadth of content in various formats, for various purposes. Some key additions on this front include:
- Answers to and discussions around frequently asked pet care questions
- Episodic online shows and pet-specific podcasts
- Blog posts and other regularly-updated content
PetsatHome’s current ecommerce offering is the team’s best effort yet.
For starters, animal-specific product category pages are more robust than ever. While not necessarily microsites, these pages act as central hubs when shopping for a specific animal.
Product pages have perhaps seen the most drastic improvement in recent years:
From in-depth product specs and multimedia, to product recommendations, delivery options, and social proof (when available), each product page now gives customers more than enough information to make the right buying decision.
Again, the Pets at Home team doesn’t just sell pet supplies and related products. Rather, their site offers an all-encompassing digital experience for animal lovers of all walks of life.
The end result:
An ever-happier and healthier life for the furry friends in our lives.