Ever wonder how important certain breeding practices are to your potential puppy buyers? Well, we did too, enough so that The Dog Journal decided to have a customer survey done in the hopes that some of our questions could be answered. We have gathered data from over 345 people, and would like to break down our answers and results.
For the first issue, we will release the results from the group of people that if given a choice, would buy from a responsible breeder versus a rescue or pet store.
When asked to choose from the below listed items when choosing to buy a puppy, here is what they said is the most important piece when making their decision.
35% Genetic Health
32% Price
28% Inspected Facilities
4% Distance to Breeder
When these same participants were asked which of the below are very important when making their purchasing decision, this is what they replied.
79% Genetic Health
74% Licensed Facilities
54% Price
51% Breed Specific
37% Good social media presence and ratings
What this means is that if your puppies are tested and clear of genetic health issues, you appeal to a much bigger crowd of potential buyers! Your puppies stand to sell up to 80% quicker than puppies with no health testing.
Another interesting part is that the vast majority of people really do care whether you are inspected or not. In fact, according to these numbers, having a licensed and inspected facility is more important than even price! And by the looks of things, being breed specific tops having a good social media platform and following! While proper communication is obviously important, this shows that people want to buy puppies from a breeder that is dedicated to the breed he or she is raising, and can answer any questions they may have about the breed.
Here’s some comments people made when they were asked what breeders could do better to help the transaction of selling a puppy be better and less stressful:
“Provide background information and health information”
“Have all the questions about the new puppy ready for the owner”
“Encourage questions and be gracious when receiving them”
“Be a responsible breeder that breeds for both genetic health and behavior/temperament”
“Have a strong sense of ethics and morality, which means more than just making money”
“Explain the temperament and general personality of the breed”
“Spend time with the puppy to see if we are a good fit before we purchase and take the puppy home with us”
“Don’t play games! Be honest”
“Have a solid & responsive online presence so that we can connect, see, and get information during and after the purchase”
68% of new puppy buyers think it’s important to keep their puppy on the same diet they were on. How easily can your new puppy buyers find the dog food the puppies are on? Does the dog food company you’re currently with do a good job at appealing and marketing to consumers? Do you send your puppy buyers a link to the site they can by puppy food on?
90% of new puppy buyers said that a reputable breeder can be trusted to give sound advice regarding the welfare of a puppy. Put in a different way, if your puppy buyers don’t feel like you care about the welfare of the puppy they just bought, you have just confirmed to 90% of them that you are not reputable.
65% of new puppy buyers said they would take online training classes before they buy a puppy.
Have you done your research and found a good training platform that you can utilize and refer buyers to? Think about how much this will mean to 65% of your puppy buyers if you send them training information before they ever show up for the first time!
69% of new puppy buyers want to buy pet insurance for their new puppy. Again, have you done your research? Do you give your customers peace of mind by offering a short period of free pet insurance?
To recap, we’ve gotten some interesting feedback here. First of all, going over and beyond what needs to be done can be a game changer. Doing those extra few things to make the transition smoother will help your new puppy buyers view their experience with you as a positive thing. And when your customers have a good experience, they will talk to other people about that experience. The same goes for the flip side, if they have a bad experience. The difference is when someone talks negatively about what we do, it leaves us with a bad feeling.
In the next issue, let’s dive deeper into some of these stats and see if we can learn even more than what appears on the surface!
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