Chewy wagging tail with sales increase
Chewy.com’s customers enjoy the convenience of automatic renewal of pet supplies so they always have what they need for their pets, according to Chewy CEO Sumit Singh.
“Nobody likes lugging around jugs of heavy product back from the stores,” he said in an appearance on CNBC-TV Thursday.
The “auto-ship” is one factor in Chewy reporting a 45 percent increase in sales in its first fiscal quarter after taking the company public. In June, Chewy had one of the most successful initial public offerings so far this year.
The Dania Beach-based company’s quarterly revenue beat analysts’ estimates. Sales were $1.1 billion for the quarter ended May 5 compared with $763 million for the quarter ended April 29, 2018. The company said it has 11.3 million customers, adding 3.5 million from a year ago.
“We believe we are in the early stages of our growth,” said Singh on a Thursday conference call with Wall Street analysts.
Singh said pet owners in the U.S. spend $900 to $1,000 a year on pet products, according to 2017 industry numbers.
Singh noted Chewy’s personalized service, which includes handpainted pet portraits for loyal customers, and innovation such as a new pet prescription service online.
The company still isn’t profitable, however. But its net loss of $26.5 million in the quarter decreased by 50.6 percent from $59.8 million in the 2018 quarter, Chewy said.
Chewy went public in June with a $22-a-share price on the New York Stock Exchange, which gave the company a market value of $8.8 billion. The stock closed on Thursday at $32.85 a share, up $1.19 or 3.76 percent. The company received $111.5 million from its stock offering, according to a regulatory filing.
The company, which competes with Amazon, Petco and many other retailers on selling pet food and products, said it added its eighth fulfillment center, in Dayton, Ohio, earlier this month. Before going public, Chewy was acquired in May 2017 by competitor PetSmart for a reported $3.35 billion.
Chewy has more than 10,000 employees, including 1,200 at its customer service center in Hollywood and 700 at its headquarters in Dania Beach.