Kriser’s Natural Pet is an all-natural pet food and supplies store with 28 locations across the Chicagoland, Southern California, metro Denver and Houston areas. Owner Brad Kriser got his start in the pet business in 2000, when he opened a pet care services center in Chicago called The Barking Lot which sold a small selection of all-natural pet supplies. That natural pet supplies offering took off, with people coming from great distances to purchase natural products for their pets.
From there, Brad evaluated the market and determined that there was an opportunity in the pet supplies market for a store that elevated the experience of buying pet food, in a location where you could trust that all the products sold were what’s best for your pet. In 2006, the first Kriser’s location opened in Chicago and the rest was history. In this exclusive interview with Brad Kriser, owner of Kriser’s Natural Pet, he shares how he was able to break into the pet supplies market and compete with Petco and PetSmart, his process for expanding to new geographic areas across the country and his advice on how to build an infrastructure that will help scale your business to the next level.
How to Compete with an 800 Pound Gorilla Named Petco
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Before Kriser’s came along, the pet industry was generally made up of large big box stores, like Petco and PetSmart, and single store, independent mom and pop shops. The mom and pop shops were generally run by passionate owners who loved animals, but treated their stores more like a hobby than as a business. Brad knew there was an opportunity for a store like Kriser’s to fill the gap between big box stores and mom and pop shops and set out to change the experience of buying pet supplies. In fact, he was so confident in his concept that he opened up his first store in Chicago across the street from a Petco.
“I needed to be able to prove the concept was going to be able to beat them,” explains Brad. “And it beat them wholeheartedly. It grew incredibly and it took away a lot of business from them.”
Brad sets Kriser’s apart by focusing on three principles: creating an aesthetically pleasing environment, carrying brands consumers can trust and providing high levels of service and education. The look and feel of each store is designed to be open, clean and friendly; the opposite of what you’ll find at many pet stores. Every product carried in Kriser’s stores goes through an extensive vetting process and is approved by Brad himself. Every Pack Member – Brad’s term for a Kriser’s employee – is highly educated on the products and they are trained to help consumers pick out what’s best for their pet.
“The biggest issue that people always had when I was starting was ‘How are you going to compete with the Petco and PetSmarts?’” shares Brad. “I created my business from the beginning to be an aesthetically pleasing environment, a place where you’re going to have brands that you can trust and an incredibly high level of service in an educational environment.”
Any new brands that come into the store go through a diligence process to ensure Kriser’s is comfortable with the efficacy of the product, where it comes from, the company itself and what they stand for.
“When I started there were actually only a handful of brands on the market that would fit into my stores,” says Brad. “Now there are a huge amount of them that will. We do a lot of research on the companies because we’re putting our stamp on it that it’s Kriser’s approved. That definitely means something now.”
If you’re looking for a way to source new products, Brad recommends visiting trade shows to review large groups of products at once and to get a look at what’s happening in your industry on a larger scale.
"Trade shows are great for that. If someone is starting out and doesn't go check out trade shows to look at the market, they're fools. It's really a great resource," says Brad.
Expansion Plans
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Once the first Kriser’s location proved to be a success, Brad looked to expand the concept further. In order to show that Kriser’s would resonate not only in a city location, but in the suburbs too, Brad needed to open new locations across different Chicago neighborhoods and surrounding communities. After opening more successful locations in the Chicagoland area, they were ready to test the concept in an entirely new city.
“We go into areas where we think there’s an opportunity in, but not too much of a competitive environment that we have to compete with a local chain,” shares Brad.
Kriser’s first expanded to Los Angeles. Moving to California was a natural progression; it is a much more health conscious state, plus the weather is more conducive to being outdoors with your pets year-round. After opening a few more locations across the Orange County and Southern California area, Kriser’s then moved to Colorado. Colorado, like California, is also a very health conscious state, but there was another reason behind the expansion that may surprise you.
“We went to Colorado because it was a very health conscious state. But in addition to that, Colorado had the highest average dog weight in the country because they have so many big dogs. And big dogs eat more food. So there’s different things like that that you look at too,” explains Brad.
Once the team has picked a next market for expansion, they work with brokers and real estate agents in those areas to help them find the right spaces. In addition to following demographic profiles for what they think will make a successful location, being able to find the right real estate agent to work with in each market is extremely important.
“You really have to work with people who know the streets, not just hitting the listings in the books. The good ones know what every business around [the location] is doing in dollars, they know who’s coming and who’s going,” says Brad.
Kriser’s does not franchise their stores, so each new location is executed by their corporate team. Although there has been an opportunity to move to the franchise model, it’s not something that Brad is interested in. The experience at each store and the service provided by their Pack Members is so important to their core business model; as you franchise your business it becomes harder and harder to control those variables.
“When you get into franchises you start getting people that have different ideas and the experience changes. It’s hard to be able to maintain that experience across multiple stores,” Brad explains. “It’s more important to us to be able to maintain that experience than to have rapid growth through franchising.”
The biggest challenge Kriser’s has faced when moving to new markets is making sure people know exactly who they are. While their name doesn’t necessarily invoke thoughts of furry friends, it does convey that there is a real person behind the store – it’s not just another big corporate identity. The Kriser’s name also helps differentiate the chain from other pet brands in the marketplace. With similar names that tend to string together, it’s harder to make a name for yourself among a Petco, PetSmart or Pet Supplies Plus.
How to Build a Business That's Ready to Scale
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One of the hardest things for a business owner when growing their company is learning how to build the right team and delegating parts of the business. When it’s a smaller company, owners have their hands in every part of the business. As you grow, you must start to build out an infrastructure that can handle future growth plans.
“If you don’t build an infrastructure as you continue to grow you’ll probably cave in on yourself at some point,” Brad says. “You don’t want to start building it too early, because you’re spending too much money, but if you do it too late you’ll be playing catch up.”
Part of that infrastructure is understanding when to add new employees. Many companies add employees like crazy, only to realize that their payroll is astronomical and they don’t yet have the sales volume to support the growth. Don’t add too many people too quickly when they’re not yet needed, but make sure you have enough people hired early enough to make a difference when you’re ready to grow.
It’s also important to develop growth plans as part of your infrastructure. Know your headcount across different positions and be able to identify how many people you’ll need each year as you grow and in what areas of the business. This will keep you accountable and avoid stretching your payroll too thin. And once you’ve hired these new team members? Be able to trust the people that you’re working with.
“I personally feel that if you try and micromanage as you get too large you’re not putting any trust into your employees. You can’t do everything and things will fall by the wayside,” warns Brad. “I love to surround myself with people that are smarter than me. If I can do that, I’ve been successful. Don’t have too big of an ego that you’re not willing to take help and advice from others.”
No matter what your business growth plans include, have an understanding of what you’re going to need from a financial perspective. Gaining access to capital is traditionally an arduous, difficult and uncomfortable process. If your expansion plans include opening three new locations in the next 18 months, have you determined how you are going to fund those plans?
“I think that’s a mistake that many, many businesses make. They just don’t realize the kind of money that they’re going to need to reach their goals and how difficult it is to obtain the money,” Brad says.
Brad started out by bootstrapping his first store in order to have proof of concept. To open the second store, he did a small friends and family round. After that, he went looking for more professional investors. If you plan on raising equity capital, Brad advises to pick your financial partners very carefully. If you make the wrong choice, you may not have a functional board. That can halt the growth of any company.
"I think the most important thing I did when creating the business was have a true passion for pets and for health and wellness," says Brad. "You have to really love it because you're going to put your blood, sweat and tears into it. There's going to be a lot of difficult times, you're usually the last one to get paid. You have to have a strong stomach and an overwhelming desire."
