41In recent years, as people's lifestyles have changed, pet ownership has evolved from simple basic feeding to a higher level of emotional companionship.
Pet products are no longer just about meeting daily necessities, but have become the “social currency” popular among young people today.
Image source:Vetreska
This trend has directly driven the rapid development of the pet economy worldwide. According to Zion Market Research:
The global pet supplies market is estimated to reach $321.25 billion in 2024, and is expected to grow to about $538.43 billion by 2034, maintaining a steady compound annual growth rate of about 5.30% over the years.
Image source:Zion Market Research
Many domestic enterprises have seen the huge potential of this track and are competing to layout Tuke.
Among them, a Shanghai brand that has conquered a large number of overseas pet owners with the economy of appearance and social marketing stands out.
It is Vetreska.
Breaking through as a niche emerging brand, growing into a dark horse with annual GMV exceeding 100 million yuan in overseas markets, how did it achieve this?
Image source:Google
From Shanghai to the world: The birth and rapid rise of a pet lifestyle brand
According to public information, Vetreska is a new pet lifestyle brand from Shanghai, jointly founded in 2017 by Chinese Nico Li and Singaporean founder Donald Kng.
Image source:Google
During the brand's initial stage, the two founders found through research that the consumer group aged 20 to 40 is the core force of the pet economy, especially in overseas markets, where the proportion of young pet owners is particularly high.
At that time, the global pet supplies market showed a clear polarization: one end was traditional brands focusing on practicality, the other was niche brands focusing on high-end luxury.
The founding team captured a market gap: young pet owners pursue both product design and reasonable cost performance.
Based on this insight, Vetreska chose young pet owners who pursue fashion and quality of life as the brand's core user group. These people not only have strong purchasing power, but also like to show their personal aesthetics through pet products.
Vetreska's product line is rich, covering cat trees, litter boxes, travel bags, pet bowls and other categories. It integrates natural elements such as cactus, strawberry, watermelon, cherry, orange, and highly saturated trendy colors into product design, creating pet furniture with both functionality and social attributes.
Image source:Vetreska
With this differentiated product strategy, Vetreska successfully distanced itself from similar brands in the market, gaining the love of many overseas pet owners and producing frequent bestsellers.
Within just one year of establishment, sales reached $9.5 million (about RMB 65.82 million).
In 2019, the brand's sales doubled compared to the initial stage, rising to $30 million (over RMB 200 million), achieving leapfrog growth in just two years.
By 2023, Vetreska successfully entered the Top 50 list of Shanghai online new consumer brands.In the same year, its overseas sales broke through the 100 million yuan mark, becoming a true cross-border dark horse in this niche track.(Data from EENET)
Image source:Google
TikTok breakthrough: Collaborating with pet influencers, letting real experiences speak
When expanding overseas markets,Vetreska faced the core challenge of gaining recognition and acceptance from overseas consumers for this Chinese pet brand.
To address this, it adopted a de-branding communication strategy. Instead of hard advertising on social platforms, it leveraged pet bloggers, letting products naturally appear in the lives and sights of potential users.
For example, on TikTok, Vetreska collaborates with pet influencers and focuses on daily short video content creation, precisely recommending products to the core target audience in the pet field.
TikTok pet influencer @hosico_cat, with 816,300 followers, is a cute golden British Shorthair cat, and shot a promotional video for Vetreska about daily pet outings.
Image source:TikTok
In the video,@hosico_cat is placed in Vetreska's fully transparent rolling cat bag, going out with its owner. This cat bag allows the kitten to clearly observe the surroundings and lets the owner easily monitor the cat's status and reactions.
So far, this promotional video has exceeded 22 million views, with 818,000 likes.
In the comments, many users praised “Awesome, especially suitable for taking kittens out.” “Great cat stroller.”
Some potential consumers who were successfully attracted even asked, “Great pet suitcase, how much does this amazing thing cost?”
It can be seen that such realistic, natural short video content closely tied to daily life can precisely attract cat lovers and pet owners, achieving efficient product seeding.
Image source:TikTok
Stimulating UGC ecosystem: Making every user a brand ambassador
Moreover, TikTok's platform ecosystem has distinct characteristics: users are more willing to trust real-life scenes shared by ordinary creators, and are less receptive to hard advertising.
Based on this, Vetreska abandoned the traditional model of passive advertising, instead creating a communication format where users become the protagonists of content.
While deeply collaborating with high-profile pet influencers to create viral content, it also actively launched UGC (User Generated Content) campaigns, encouraging global pet owners to share daily moments and experience videos of their pets using Vetreska products.
This operation strategy not only enables the brand to obtain massive authentic native content at low cost, continuously accumulating communication materials and topic heat on the platform, but also allows users to deeply participate in brand communication, gaining a strong sense of involvement and belonging, further deepening the emotional connection between users and the brand.
Image source:TikTok
Using “Chinese creativity” to conquer global pet owners
Now is the golden period for laying out pet products Tuke.
The global pet economy continues to heat up, with a clear trend of consumption upgrading. Overseas markets, especially Europe and America, have unmet demand for pet products with design, functionality, and social attributes, leaving huge market space for Chinese brands.
Vetreska's success proves a core logic: in this track, product is content, pet ownership is social.
No need for huge technical barriers or massive capital investment; the key is to precisely capture the emotional needs of contemporary pet owners——they are buying not just pet products, but a shareable lifestyle, a symbol of identity.
For Chinese enterprises, the biggest advantage is that we know better than anyone how to create “social currency”. From supply chain rapid response to social media operations, from influencer marketing to user co-creation, these strategies proven in the Chinese market are becoming powerful tools for conquering global markets.
Entering now, what needs to be done is not blindly following, but redefining. The next bestseller may be hidden in an undiscovered pet pain point. The important thing is to stay sharp, stay creative, and keep the ability to dialogue with global pet owners.
After all, the love of pet owners around the world is universal, and what we need to do is provide the best “props” for this love.
