Rashmi Narang wanted her Labrador Sara’s birthday to be special by gifting her a bed that gave her a sound sleep. The market was searched looking for a comfortable pet bed but all could she find was some tablecloths stitched together. The designs were not at all appealing.
Pawrenting is no cakewalk. Soon, Rashmi realised that the Indian retail space lacks a ‘Firstcry’ specially designed for pets that will have all pet accessories, food, clothing, and merchandise under a single roof. This is how the idea of opening a retail store -Heads up for Tails clicked in Rashmi Narang’s mind intending to give pawrents access to quality merchandise.
Founded in 2008, Rashmi Narang’s Heads Up for Tails went on to win many hearts across India and has grown to have 39 stores in India housing an array of pet products and accessories such as pet food, collars, leashes and harnesses, dog bowls, dog clothing, car grooming kits, cat bow ties, cat furniture, and scratchers. It also offers personalised items such as name tags, accessories, bedding, diners, etc.
As success began embracing the brand, Heads Up for Tails began experiencing demands for their products from locations where they did not have any physical stores. This is where the retail brand decided to pivot online and chose Shopify as their e-commerce platform.
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Heads Up For Tails began receiving orders that could not be fulfilled by its offline stores.
How Shopify helped Heads Up for Tails build their online store
Shopify’s myriad plug-and-play apps and the platform’s easy to get started characteristic helped Heads Up for Tails to start their online store easily and provided adequate time to focus on innovation to deliver happiness to pet parents. In addition to this, the retail chain brand has gone beyond supplying pet essentials online to launch Heads Up For Tails Foundation to make a positive impact in society regarding the welfare of animals and educate and remind children to be compassionate towards them. Let us understand how setting up a digital storefront on the Shopify platform helped Heads Up for Tails develop and strengthen bonds with their customers.
1. Educative product pages
Customers from the digital era are surrounded by an abundance of information that makes them cautious not only for the products that they buy for themselves but their pets as well. They want to gather as much information, especially about pet food. For an online store, where there will be no face-to-face conversation, the store must address any queries from the customers while they browse.
Heads Up for Tails solved this challenge by creating product pages that provided in-depth product descriptions highlighting the ingredients appropriate for the pet. The pages displayed multiple product pictures to help their customers get a look and feel of the products being sold.
2. Product suggestions
Replicating the interaction of salesmen suggesting products in a physical store online is limited and educating the customers or recommending products that can add more value to pets can be challenging. To tackle this, Heads Up For Tails displayed product suggestions based on the searches made by the visitor. For instance, if a visitor searches dog food, the site uses recommendations to display different brands, flavours, and variants available.
3. The pet bloggers
The online pet retail store has a separate blog section where happy pet stories are shared by their families. In addition to this, informative tips and remedies are shared by the pet groomers and experts to help pet parents with the upbringing of their loved ones. Sharing blog stories helped the retail brand establish its authority in the eyes of the customers.
Heads Up for Tails implemented the above steps to provide a comfortable and informed purchasing experience to their customers and has built a close-knit family of customers and pets and a base of loyal customers for repeat business. With the help of Shopify’s app, the online pet brand has scaled its online store shopping experience with each passing day, winning more hearts across India and helping pet parents to raise a compassionate generation.
