Petz is the largest pet shop chain in Brazil and the company keeps growing. Its e-commerce platform is fast, safe and complete. But brazilians still prefer shopping at one of the eighty stores around the country. So, our challenge was to promote Petz e-commerce - driving traffic to the platform and boosting sales – as well as to show how the company understands what owners feel for their pets and their needs when shopping online.

Pet-commerce is the first online shopping experience designed specifically for dogs. The owner goes to Petz’s website, click on Pet-commerce button and go to an ambient designed specifically for dogs. Then, all the owner has to do is turning on the camera and playing the products videos to the dog. A tool that combines A.I. and visual recognition will analyze each of the dogs facial expressions and detect when he/she is interested in a certain product, adding it to the shopping cart. Then, the owner can review the dog’s wish list and proceed with the purchase.

Brazil is a very diverse country. But when it comes to dog owners, the demographic data and the consumer behavior are very similar. Petz’s primary target consists of women (55%) and men (45%), aged 25 to 55 years old, from classes A, B and C. These people treat their dogs like a family member. And they have strong bonds with brands that understand their feelings and celebrate this “parent-child” relationship with their dogs.

So, to create and promote Pet-commerce, we focused on the humanization of dogs, showing that besides everything owners and dogs can do together, there’s one more moment of fun and love: when shopping online. To call the target attention, we used the approach “The first online store where the dogs get to choose what they really want to buy”, awakening people’s curiosity and inviting them to try the innovation.

To bring Pet-commerce to life, more than 200 people from 3 different companies worked together. The project took six months to be implemented. The first part was data gathering (November and December 2018). We parternered with Leonardo Ogata, one of the best dog trainers in Brazil, to categorize twenty thousand images of dogs facial expressions, in 5 levels of interest. Then, we created a new topology of artificial intelligence. After a long process of machine learning (January to March), the neural network was able to mimic the dog trainers ability to identify the most varied dogs expressions, with 83% accuracy. At the same time, we developed the first browsing experience for dogs. And April was reserved for extensive testing and updates on the technology and the UX. Pet-commerce website was officially launched in 04/24/19, to its 1.1 million clients as well as to potential consumers around the country.

During the first week after lauching, the site traffic increased 236%. The average time spent on the e-commerce jumped 103%. And the sales in toys category lifted 57%, showing that consumers really enjoyed the experience of having their dogs shopping along with them. Furthermore, Pet-commerce earned more than R$3.1 million in spontaneous media. Articles about the project were published in more than 100 media outlets in countries such as Brazil, United States, England, Russia, Australia, Germany, France, Lithuania, Slovakia, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Uruguay, Argentina, Georgia etc. And, finally, the positive mentions on social networks reached 95,6%.