Pet products marketer PetQuarters is betting the farm on its Allpets brand – which is significant once you consider that PetQuarters bought Allpets less than six months ago.
A bit of history: Lonoke, AR-based PetQuarters bought multititle cataloger Humboldt Industries in August 1999. Hazleton, PA-based Humboldt included business-to-business pet supplies catalog The Dog’s Outfitter, consumer pet supplies title Home Pet Shop, and the Maplewood Crafts catalog. Then, this past May, PetQuarters acquired Allpets, a content-only pure-play.
In early September, PetQuarters launched an Allpets print catalog, which will replace the PetQuarters and Home Pet Shop books. And in October, PetQuarters replaced its own Website with a relaunched version of the Allpets.com site. By year’s end, both the PetQuarters and Humboldt Industries brands will be extinct, although spokesperson Tamatha Hauskens says The Dog’s Outfitter will continue to operate separately from the combined Allpets brand, as will Maplewood Crafts.
Multiple channels, one brand The 92-page Allpets catalog mailed to about 1 million propsects and online PetQuarters/Home Pet Shop customers. “PetQuarters and Home Pet Shop built a great infrastructure with more than 20 years of catalog experience,” Hauskens says. “But Allpets.com had more brand recognizability. So we’re now able to reach multiple channels with one recognizable brand.”
The new book will also be a public relations piece for the Website, says chief financial officer Gregg Rollins. “In addition, we’ll have the content from the Allpets.com site.” The company is also sending out an opt-in e-mail magazine that often focuses on celebrities and their pets.
Before the PetQuarters acquisition, venture capital-backed Allpets began as a Los Angeles-based Website offering information for pet owners. The site’s content was highlighted by magazine-type personality stories about people and their pets. In Allpets, “we bought a library of authoritative content, including streaming video,” Rollins says. The content now complements the company’s full online catalog of pet-related merchandise.
All catalog and Website marketing and order fulfillment for the All-Pets.com site and catalog, as well as for The Dog’s Outfitter and Maplewood catalogs, will be handled out of the former Humboldt’s Hazleton facilities. PetQuarters’ plans to shut its former Lonoke headquarters later this year.