Pets and The Economy

What a difference a year makes. While unemployment is still way too high, it seems we have dodged a major bullet as far as the economy goes. Companies are starting to report better than expected earnings and the stock market is doing much better than it was last spring, for sure. Hopefully those same companies will start hiring again and soon. Consumers with jobs are starting to spend a little more given the better national mood on things economic.

This is interesting given all the doom and gloom scenarios of earlier this year. I read a study of consumer attitudes on spending and pets this week that I thought was really interesting.

 

It seems that when it comes to our pets we are less likely to skimp than in other areas of our lives. I guess they really are family members, after all.

 

In this study consumers were asked in late 2008 if they planned to cut back on spending in four key areas. The authors then went back to these same consumers and asked what they had actually done over the course of 2009.

 

The spending categories were groceries, personal items, children's items and pet items. By cutting back consumers were saying that they would switch to lower cost brands to satisfy their needs.

 

The results were interesting in two ways. First of all, consumers actually cut back more than they said they would. For instance on groceries, 38% of consumers predicted that they would switch to lower cost brands to save money and a whopping 77% actually did. That's almost double the prediction. On personal items 44% predicted a brand switch and 77% really did. On children's items the results were surprising. Only 29% of consumers predicted they would switch to lower cost brands but in reality 61% actually made the switch.

 

So, what happened with spending on pet items? You'd think it would be similar and probably pretty close to what happened with children.

 

Well, you'd be wrong. Thirty three percent of pet owners said they'd cut back to lower cost brands of pet items to save money but only 36% of study participants actually did. That's by far the smallest increase in any of the four categories. Seems like brand loyalty is pretty high when it comes to pets.

 

My question is, what does it say about our attitudes about our children compared to our pets? If you believe these results, the pets in our families barely noticed the recession at all, while the humans in the family sacrificed the most. Guess that makes sense when you think about it. After all our pets had very little to do with bringing on the financial melt down. 

 

Why should they suffer?