Pets Domain to open flagship Cambridge store 10 years after exit
A decade after a competitor purchased its Tasmanian assets, a homegrown retail giant with 65 stores Australia-wide is coming home. Its chief executive has revealed a huge growth strategy.
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Ten years after exiting the Tasmanian market thanks to a golden handshake from a competitor, a homegrown retail giant is set to plant roots in the island state yet again.
Pets Domain, which previously operated six Tasmanian stores before its local assets were purchased by competitor Petbarn in late-2011, will open its 63rd location Australia-wide at Cambridge on Saturday.
Two more mainland stores will open this month, taking the total to 65.
The Pets Domain story is not quite rags to riches – more like garage to glory.
Launceston-born chief executive Jason van Peelen – the company’s head office is at Legana – began his career 35-plus years ago breeding and selling fish from his parents’ garage.
“I had a single fish tank. A couple of fish accidentally bred and it inspired me to try it on a bit of a bigger scale. Before I knew it, I had multiple tanks, selling fish to pet stores. Lo and behold, people started asking me for other things,” Mr van Peelen recalled.
He opened his first retail store on Brisbane St and eventually expanded to six brick-and-mortar stores across Tasmania.
So successful was he, Petbarn came knocking.
“The offer at the time was significant. We decided we would accept, it was not necessarily easy to do, selling the original stores,” he said.
However, the injection of capital enabled Pets Domain to undertake a “massive growth campaign”.
It set the business up – Mr van Peelen said Pets Domain will be opening 25 new stores a year “for the foreseeable future”.
“We do assume we will open some more in Tasmania before too long,” he said.
Outside the capital cities has been an especial focus for Pets Domain.
“Because of our roots in Tasmania, we identify with regional Australia better than metro. Our network of stores is predominantly in regional Australia, it seems to be a good fit for us,” he said.
It’s not just brick-and-mortar Pets Domain has been plunging investment into.
Last year, true to Mr van Peelen’s roots, the company established “Australia’s largest fish wholesaler”, Aquarium Industries, which breeds from a farm in Queensland.
Meanwhile, there is also a manufacturing and importing division, Nature’s Best, which produces lines such as Peckish, Tidbits, and Dan & Sam animal fashion accessories.
Many of these products are stocked in Pets Domain.
“We certainly would be the most vertically integrated pet business in Australia,” Mr van Peelen said.
The high-achieving chief executive said the concept of pet ownership had been transformed in the early four decades he had been on the scene.
“The way people treat animals these days... is chalk and cheese. Scraps off the table are no longer good enough, they are part of the family nowadays,” he said.
The Cambridge store will be officially opened at 2pm.
Balloon artist Sally Sunshine will be on-site until noon for children’s entertainment, HitFM will perform a live cross from 11am–1pm with lolly bag giveaways, and a cheque will be presented to Dogs’ Homes of Tasmania.
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Originally published as Pets Domain to open flagship Cambridge store 10 years after exit
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