Missing a trick--part 3

Regular readers will know I have a bit of a beef with the levels of personalisation in pet supplies emails. I’ve blogged about it at least twice (here and here), and commented on it countless times. So imagine my delight at finally receiving an email from a UK-based pet-supplies merchant that said it was creating an email preference centre.


I envisaged a world where I entered the type of pet I own (dog), his age, breed or size. I thought it may even ask me what I usually fed him, whether he had any medical conditions, what flea treatment I used and when the next one was due, all in the name of creating a 360-degree view of me as a customer. I pictured the retailer sending me superpersonalised emails with offers I couldn’t refuse. Think what you can do to your repeat-order levels if you knew the last time I bought a dog-worming tablet and could schedule to send me a reminder three months later. Think also of the goodwill you’d generate by showing me more products suited to a Labrador than a Chihuahua--I don’t quite think my dog would carry off the tiara look.

Then came the disappointment. Pets at Home only wanted to know if I had a dog, cat, horse, bird, reptile, fish, small pet, or “other”. There wasn’t another page to fill in. That was it. I can’t help but feel that Pets at Home really missed an opportunity to get to know its customers.--MT