Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2026-01-19 Origin: Site
"Going down & going out" — these are probably the two differentiated development paths most favored by pet brands and merchants when facing market competition in recent years, corresponding to the lower-tier market and overseas market respectively. Among them, the commercial exploration of the lower-tier market is more common. It does not require tedious and complicated compliance procedures, the operation foundation and supply chain guarantee are easier to achieve, and the predictable market space and development potential seem larger and more certain. However, we rarely see any pet brand that can gain full recognition and favor in different lower-tier markets and become the absolute core force there. Why? For pet brands and merchants, is the lower-tier market a "traffic depression" that can be easily harvested, or a "differentiated new battlefield" that requires an entirely new set of strategies?
Before discussing the reasons, we need to first understand the underlying logic of why the lower-tier market can become the core driving force for the future growth of the pet industry. In Hanseek’s view, this rising momentum comes from multiple social structural changes: the improvement of county economy, the equalization of consumption concepts by the Internet, and the growing demand for companionship and emotion in both urban and rural areas against the backdrop of aging and declining birth rates. It is precisely in this structural change that the lower-tier pet market has gradually become one of the growth engines of the pet industry. Data shows that the proportion of pet owners in first-tier cities has continued to decline in recent years, while the proportion of pet owners in third-tier and below cities has significantly increased from 20.4% in 2020 to 30% in 2023.
However, this migration is not a simple consumption downgrade or replication, but a profound restructuring of consumption logic. Pet consumption in first-tier cities focuses more on brands and experiences, while in lower-tier markets, pet ownership returns to its original essence: a pure emotional sustenance and lifestyle. In other words, the opportunity here does not lie in moving the excess inventory and outdated models of first-tier cities to lower-tier markets, but in understanding the real consumption needs of these markets.
In the current consumption landscape of China's pet lower-tier market, on one side is the prudence and rationality of consumers, and on the other side is the ambition and prosperity of the industrial side. At the same time, the consumption behaviors and habits of different lower-tier markets vary, making the competition in the lower-tier market often more complex and diverse than that in first-tier markets. This is the first lesson that any player who wants to tap into the lower-tier market must learn.
Unlike first and second-tier cities dominated by young people, the lower-tier market shows a distinct dual-core driving pattern of "silver-haired people and town youth dancing together", which makes the consumption capacity of the lower-tier market increasingly complex and diverse. For example, a pet store owner in Shantou City, Guangdong Province, said that the main customers of the store are people over 45 years old, and their consumption capacity shows polarization: "One group has weak economic conditions and cares more about prices, while the other group has good economic conditions, is not sensitive to prices, and pursues high-quality products."
County silver-haired pet owners: Their consumption is function-oriented and health-oriented. They pay attention to the actual health of pets, so they show a strong preference for prescription food, low-fat food, specific functional food and other products, and have a high acceptance of the concept of "regional exclusivity".
Town youth pet owners: Their consumption trend is emotion-oriented and experience-oriented. They regard pets as important emotional partners and family members, are keen on smart pet products, and pursue convenience and technology in pet raising. At the same time, they also desire personalization, and customized collars, pet clothes and other products that can highlight uniqueness are very popular.
Interestingly, above these differentiated demands, a unified consumption mentality is taking shape — the pursuit of "high-cost-effectiveness experience". Here, "high cost-effectiveness" does not simply mean "seeking cheapness", but means that consumers are willing to pay for the "perceived core value", but refuse to pay for excessive brand premiums, flashy marketing concepts or unrealistic additional functions. For example, they pay attention to the nutritional composition and ingredient list of pet food, but the influence of brand awareness may be relatively weak; they will be attracted by a sturdy and durable pet toy, but may be indifferent to flashy designs.
In sharp contrast to the high differentiation on the consumer side is the surprising concentration and ambition of the industrial side in the lower-tier market. The traditional industrial logic is "consumption drives production", but now we are seeing a new scenario of "production reshapes consumption". For example, counties represented by Yinan County and Caoxian County in Shandong Province, Luohe City in Henan Province and Suzhou City in Anhui Province are taking advantage of their comprehensive advantages in raw materials, labor, land and logistics costs to actively undertake and even create pet industry clusters from scratch.
For enterprises with supply chain resources or manufacturing capabilities, this is a differentiated path worth choosing. The core significance of this strategy is that instead of exploring the lower-tier consumer market alone, it is better to directly integrate into the emerging county pet economy industrial belts, become part of their ecosystem, and then share the certain growth dividends in the industrial wave.
