5th February 2024

Five reasons not to offer home delivery!

When you think about how many of us prefer to have our products delivered, it would seem to make perfect sense to provide your healthcare plan clients with the same service. However, some practices are reluctant to do so and have strong reasons for not providing this service to their clients. We understand the hesitancy, but practices without home delivery miss out on an additional 25% of sign-ups, meaning that, if a practice without home delivery is signing up 240 new pets per year, they will miss out signing up an additional 60 pets, costing them £12,240* in lost annualised revenue.

So, let’s look at the reasons you may not want to offer home delivery and the facts behind them.

1. Home delivery reduces footfall

This is true! If you provide your plan members with a home delivery service, they come in less regularly.

So, why is this not a bad thing? With your pet owner clients becoming younger, (59% of new pet owners are below 35 years of age¹) the way they shop and interact with businesses is very different to previous generations. They don’t want to visit you to buy products and they expect you to provide a non-contact service, like they get everywhere else. Older pet owners are also buying online where deliveries are provided as standard. In fact, 79% of 55 – 64-year-olds shop online and 65% of over 65s do too². Think about how you shop these days! As an industry we need to move away from the traditional beliefs around footfall and start considering client engagement, as practices are at risk of losing clients by not catering for their needs.

2. You want to keep interaction with clients face-to-face

You may feel that it is better for you and your healthcare plan clients to have them visit for all interactions, be it picking up flea treatment or to see the vet. The reality is that 70% of pet owners don’t want to visit their vet clinic if their pet doesn’t need to be seen³. So, your clients don’t want to do what you’re asking them to, and that’s a problem for them and your practice’s plan revenue. The risk of cancellations is much higher when clients don’t feel they are getting value from their plan. Typical flea treatment compliance sits at only 68% for healthcare plan clients⁴ which leaves 32% of products still sitting on your shelves. You might think that seeing a client less regularly by not asking them to collect a prescription product is decreasing your bond with them, but in fact it is increasing their loyalty because providing a service clients value keeps them engaged and able to provide premium care to their pet. This means that pet owners’ see tangible value in their plans and cancellations are reduced.

3. It will make cost of our plans too high

It’s true that you’ll need to increase your plan prices if you offer home delivery. The interesting news is that practices who’ve introduced this service (with a price increase) to all healthcare plan members have seen a drop in cancellations and an increase in membership numbers! Think about how you select a service or product – it’s rarely down to price alone, it’s about who can provide what you’re looking for. Over 200 million customers of the biggest online retailer pay around £95 per year to access ‘free’, next day delivery! ⁵

4. You don’t want to look like a corporate

We fully understand this and know that you are very proud of your independent status. Your clients also appreciate this, but are they loyal enough to stay with you if they can get a service they really want elsewhere? The good news is that some of the corporate vets aren’t able to provide a home delivery service or don’t want to invest in the technology. We’ve made that investment for you so that you can offer a gold standard service to your healthcare plan clients that they may not be able to get everywhere else. It also makes your plans and practice attractive to more pet owners in your area.

5. It’s too complex to introduce another system

Some practices feel that the time and stress of introducing a new system is too much to take on, but the good news is you don’t have to! The home delivery service is run through the current system you already use to run your healthcare plans and our app, Vet2Pet provides further support for you and even more convenience for your clients.

So, if you work with Premier Vet Alliance (PVA) you already use the platform (portal) and Post2Pet home delivery is ready to go. Click here to request more information on how this works or if you’d like more information on PVA’s industry leading healthcare plan software and services.

Summary

The landscape for vet practices is changing quickly and, by not keeping up with consumer demands, many are struggling to maintain client loyalty in a very competitive industry.

There are some obvious signs that need to be considered;

Most of your new pet owners are under 35 years of age
People rely on technology much more for communication
Clients don’t want to visit your practice
Compliance for healthcare plans is still only 68% (clients aren’t always collecting what they’ve paid for)
It’s difficult to compete with large corporate vets who enjoy huge buying power
Evidence shows that people will pay for a service they want

How do you stay relevant?

Let us analyse your plan content free of charge (whether you’re a PVA customer or not), what they offer your clients and what, if anything, you can change. We can help identify where there are strengths and weaknesses in your plan’s content and performance and we can make recommendations, if needed, to help you keep up with your clients’ needs. We will never recommend change if it’s not needed.

Just click the button below to find out more

*Based on plans at the UK average of £17 per plan

¹Global Pet Industry survey 2021

²Statista online purchasing penetration by age Great Britain 2012-2020 survey

³YouGov/AI pet owner survey 2021

⁴Analysis carried out on PVA practices’ plan compliance data, where home delivery was not included

⁵Statista report July 2023