Celebrating 10 Years of Success

With the onset of 2021, India's #1 Pet Retail Brand, Just Dogs is celebrating its 10 years of being in the pet industry. Let's rewind and relive the moment of its inception with the people who laid the foundation of Just Dogs, India – Mr. Ashish Anthony and Mrs. Poorvi Anthony. They dwell upon their incredible journey over this period. Excerpts...

JUST DOGS

YOU SET OUT TO BUILD A ‘PET SPECIALTY RETAIL’ WHEN THERE WAS NONE. WAS IT A WELL THOUGHT OUT PLAN? TELL US ABOUT THE INSPIRATION AND MOTIVATION BEHIND LAYING THE FOUNDATION OF INDIA'S #1 PET RETAIL BRAND, JUST DOGS.

When we started 10 years ago, most of the businesses were facing a great recession including the corporate industry that we were working in. So we thought of starting something of our own. The inspiration behind ‘Just Dogs’ were our six dogs. The more time we spent with them, the deeper we wanted to go into knowing them. Also, we realized that people had pets and spent on some pet products but there was nothing called as a ‘Pet Industry’. We mainly had veterinarians with pet shops as their extended business. And then there were some trainers and some people who were connected to the industry, who joined hands and opened pet shops with a very small customer base. The traditional size of a pet shop was around 200– 250 square feet. Nobody had thought about the range that could be offered to the customers. That’s when we thought of stepping into this scattered industry, with a vision of organizing it and making it better.

We wanted to go step by step and the first most important thing was training. To be sure of everything when dealing with the customers, it was important that we go through proper training. We didn’t want to move ahead with the “I saw someone doing that” concept but with the correct technical knowledge.

WHAT CHALLENGES DID YOU FACE OVER THESE YEARS IN ESTABLISHING YOUR MARK IN THE INDUSTRY?