The Spring Festival is approaching, and pet boarding orders have increased significantly. On February 5, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily visited a number of pet stores and learned that during the Spring Festival, pet stores were "hard to find", and there were resort-style foster care of up to 1299 yuan a day, which was comparable to a five-star hotel. This year, the merchant provides customized content for pets such as socialization, massage, single room, and call. Service levels have skyrocketed, but disputes have arisen over accident compensation, vague surcharges, and unclear foster care agreements. The pet owner and the pet custodian shall sign a written foster care agreement stipulating the attribution of responsibility for problems during the foster care period to avoid disputes.
Equal to five-star hotels.
The Spring Festival homecoming wave has led to an increase in demand for foster care. A reporter from Beijing Business Daily learned from a number of pet stores and major platforms that during the Spring Festival, many pet stores received a large number of foster orders, and many stores were fully booked about half a month ago. Although **with the increase in market demand**, pet stores with good reputation and good service are still "hard to find".
A pet store in Haidian District opened a Spring Festival foster care reservation on January 11. With the increase in bookings, the foster care space of the store is now close to being fully booked, "A month ago, customers have been consulting foster care, and at present, only the small cage is still there a place in the cat foster care, and the others are fully booked." The person in charge of the store told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily.
The strong demand means that pet boarding is rising. A rough comparison by a reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that compared with daily life, this year's Spring Festival Beijing pet foster care is generally about 30%, about 150 yuan a day, according to the different types of pets and the services included. There are also pet stores to launch resort-style fostering, hotel-style fostering, foster care costs are as high as 1299 yuan a day, according to the first day of the new year to the eighth day of the new year, a total of eight days of vacation, the total cost of foster care during the Spring Festival reached 10392 yuan.
In Beijing's Third Ring Road, there is a store that claims to be a five-star hotel in the pet industry. According to reports, the total area of the store foster care area of 500 square meters, can foster more than 200 pets, foster room types have suites, SVIP rooms, etc., including cat sunshine suite about 899 yuan a day, dog SVIP room ** is 1299 yuan a day.
It is worth noting that the high cost of pet boarding** has approached some five-star hotels in Beijing. A reporter from Beijing Business Daily compared the hotel booking platform and found that during the Spring Festival, the ** of the executive double room of a five-star hotel in Chaoyang District was about 1030 yuan per night. It can be seen that as people's concept of pets changes and becomes more willing to consume for pets, foster care services have also ushered in a high-end demand market.
Start the soft service.
At the same time as raising **, many pet stores have also launched "variety" services. It is understood that the above-mentioned pet hotel priced at 1299 yuan a day includes basic services such as allowing pets to enjoy floor-to-ceiling windows to see the scenery, bask in the sun, environmental disinfection, feeding, etc., and also provide service options such as walking, free transfer, bathing, socializing, massage, **, etc.
Increase the number of outdoor activities according to the amount of exercise of the pet, and the store can also arrange for the foster pet to socialize with the same type of pet of the same size and more stable personality. The staff of the store said that in order to provide a better environment for pets, the store also created scenes such as outdoor gardens. In another pet hotel with the gimmick of "hotel-style fostering", it focuses on separate compartments, also equipped with outdoor courtyards, and optional cat suites are also equipped with fish tanks to provide fish watching services.
In the process of fostering, many consumers are concerned about what to do if their pets have a stress reaction in an unfamiliar environment. To this end, many stores have launched camera services, pet owners can check the status of their pets at any time, and can also initiate ** calls or have staff take photos and records regularly.
Hong Tao, vice president of the China Consumer Economics Association, pointed out that pet consumption is a kind of consumption behavior and activity of modern new consumption, and the demand for pet boarding during the Spring Festival has objective inevitability, and businesses also need to pay the corresponding pet consumption costs and service costs, and determine the level of its ** according to the fluctuation of supply and demand.
Accountability for the problem needs to be agreed.
At this stage, the pet industry is still in the "extensive" stage. During the Spring Festival, pet stores ushered in a large amount of demand, whether they can ensure that each pet is taken care of, and whether the hygienic environment is guaranteed is the focus of consumers' attention. In recent years, disputes related to pet foster care have emerged one after another, mostly around the compensation and additional costs of pets after accidents. It has been reported that a pet owner fostered an Alaskan dog in a pet agency, and the dog died in an accident two days later, but because no agreement was signed before, the responsibilities of both parties were difficult to delineate, and the pet store refused to bear the relevant compensation. In the face of such a situation, consumers and merchants will inevitably fight each other.
When merchants attract consumers through multiple services, do they have a certain screening of pet qualifications? When communicating with a number of stores, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that some stores clearly require pet owners to provide vaccine records, deworming records and dog licenses, etc., and some also require pets to be healthy, have no major medical history and have no infectious diseases in the past 6 months; However, some stores do not mention the requirements for pets at all.
Wang Jiankun, a senior partner at Shanghai Hushi Law Firm, said that pet boarding is essentially a way for pet owners to entrust pets to others for safekeeping, and the formation of a civil contractual relationship between pet owners and pet custodians is that pet custodians should fulfill their obligations of careful care and proper custody as a party providing foster care services.
Wang Jiankun also pointed out that as a foster consumer, you should carefully choose a foster care agency with relevant qualifications that can provide suitable space and facilities for pet life. And when boarding pets, it is best to sign a written foster care agreement to stipulate the attribution of responsibility for problems during the foster care period, and in case of relevant accidents, compensation will be made in accordance with the agreement to avoid disputes.
At present, the industry has not yet formed a unified service standard for pet fostering, most of which are formulated and adjusted by businesses through the actual situation, and the content of pet foster care services, service levels and pet types of screening and restriction have not yet formed a standard, and pet foster care-related disputes have emerged in endlessly.
In addition, the significance of the existence of pet stores should be to provide standardized and guaranteed services for pets, and businesses to launch a variety of services should still focus on ensuring the health and safety of pets, which is the core demand of consumers. Hong Tao said that the pet industry still needs to be further standardized, establish industry standards, community standards, and promote its sustainable development through relevant regulations and industry associations.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Liu Zhuolan Hu Jingrong.