Happy pets mean continued profits. Vetere predicts that high-tech products such as timed feeders and automatic litter box cleaners will continue to appeal to consumers. In addition, Vetere says, pet owners will continue to take a liking to pet clothing and specialized treats as well as services that allow them to maintain flexible lives, including pet-sitting, pet walking and pet-waste removal.
Green
Across all industries and all generations, a single word has people talking and taking action: green. These days, if you're doing good for the environment, consumers want to do good by you and show you another kind of green. According to a survey conducted last year by Cohn & Wolfe, Landor Associates, and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, consumers expected to double their spending on green products and services in 2008 to reach an estimated $500 billion annually. The survey also discovered that consumers' perceptions about green living have evolved and that they now perceive it as a direct and positive reflection of their social status in addition to recognizing its broader value to society and the world.
For husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Satoko Asai and Mohamed Elgayar, the first clear sign that organic had gone mainstream came when their baby clothing business, Sckoon Organics, was featured on the cover of American Baby earlier this year. The green movement has boosted the company's sales projections to about $3 million this year, but for Asai and Elgayar, who started their business in 2003 before green was really big, their success has also come from their decision to add color and style to organic cotton at a time when the word organic was often equated with plain, oatmeal-colored fabrics.
Their overwhelming success also has to do with how the pair maximized the potential of the internet, using their website, sckoon.com, not only as a tool to educate consumers about organics, but also as a distribution channel to grow their Hampton Bays, New York, company into a global brand. Launching their site in both English and Japanese and offering Japanese consumers the option to buy in yen made their brand easily accessible. They're also constantly innovating: They launched a pet clothing line last year and baby bedding just this month. "You have to stand out," says Elgayar, 46. "You can't stand out presenting the same old stuff that's in the market. You have to come up with something and believe in it and go for it."
They currently sell to 560 stores—baby boutiques, eco-stores and health stores in 22 countries—and will open distribution centers in Japan and the United Kingdom by the end of this year. "The pie is getting bigger," says Asai, 44. "But our aim has been the global market from the beginning."
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