What pet supply stores should track daily

Pet supply has reliable patterns

Pet supply e-commerce benefits from predictable customer behavior. Pets need consistent care, creating regular purchasing patterns. This predictability makes daily tracking particularly valuable—deviations from expected patterns signal issues or opportunities quickly.

Knowing what to track daily helps you catch problems early and capitalize on opportunities.

Replenishment order tracking

Pet consumables (food, litter, treats) have predictable replenishment cycles. Daily tracking reveals problems.

What to track:

Daily replenishment order count. Compare to same day last week and same day last month. Significant drops indicate potential issues.

Why it matters:

If Tuesday replenishment orders drop 30% below expected, something changed. Competitor promotion? Site issue? Stock problem? Early detection enables fast response.

Set alerts for replenishment order anomalies. This is your most stable and predictable metric.

Subscription health metrics

If you offer subscriptions, daily subscription metrics reveal business health.

Daily tracking:

New subscriptions. Cancellations. Skips. Failed payments. Net subscription change.

What to watch:

Sudden cancellation spikes indicate problems—competitor offers, service issues, or product problems. Daily tracking catches these before they compound.

Subscription metrics are leading indicators. Problems show here before they show in revenue.

Stock-out impact

Pet owners need specific products for their pets. Stock-outs have outsized impact.

Daily tracking:

Which products went out of stock today? Which key products are approaching stock-out? Conversion rate for products with low inventory.

Why it matters for pet:

If a customer’s specific pet food is out of stock, they can’t substitute easily. They need that food. Stock-outs lose these customers to competitors who have stock.

Track stock-out-related traffic losses. Pages visited for out-of-stock items indicate missed demand.

New customer acquisition

Pet customers are valuable once acquired due to repeat purchase nature. Track acquisition daily.

What to track:

New customer count. New customer source. First-order AOV. Pet type of new customers (if captured).

Why daily matters:

Acquisition spikes might indicate successful marketing. Acquisition drops might indicate competitive pressure. Daily visibility enables responsive action.

Customer return rate

Pet supply relies heavily on returning customers. Track return rates daily.

What to track:

Returning customer orders as percentage of total orders. Returning customer revenue as percentage of total revenue.

Healthy patterns:

Pet supply should see 40-60% of orders from returning customers. Higher is great. Lower indicates acquisition dependency that might not be sustainable.

Compare returning customer percentage to your baseline. Significant drops indicate retention problems.

Average order value monitoring

AOV in pet supply tends to be stable. Significant changes indicate pattern shifts.

What to track:

Daily AOV. AOV by customer type (new vs. returning). AOV by product category.

What changes indicate:

Rising AOV might indicate successful upselling or customer mix shift. Falling AOV might indicate promotions attracting smaller orders or customer behavior changes.

Track AOV trends over rolling periods. Gradual changes might indicate longer-term shifts.

Site performance metrics

Technical issues disproportionately hurt pet supply because customers have regular, expected needs.

What to track:

Site speed. Error rates. Cart abandonment rate. Checkout completion rate.

Why daily matters:

A checkout problem on Tuesday means customers who expected to reorder can’t. They need their pet supplies. They’ll go elsewhere. Fix issues same-day.

Email performance

Email drives significant pet supply revenue. Track daily.

What to track:

Email sends. Open rates. Click rates. Email-attributed revenue.

Daily patterns:

Replenishment emails should drive consistent revenue. Significant drops indicate deliverability issues, content problems, or list health concerns.

Customer service volume

Support requests reveal operational and product issues.

What to track:

Support ticket volume. Common issue categories. Resolution time.

Early warning signals:

Spikes in shipping inquiries might indicate fulfillment delays. Product question spikes might indicate confusing descriptions or quality issues.

Customer service data is an early warning system. Track daily to catch problems before they scale.

Product-level velocity

Track which products are moving fastest each day.

What to track:

Top-selling products. Products with unusual velocity changes. Products with dropping velocity.

Why it matters:

Sudden velocity drops for consistent sellers indicate problems. Sudden velocity spikes might indicate viral moments or competitor stock-outs you should capitalize on.

Pet-type segmentation

If you serve multiple pet types, track segment health.

What to track:

Revenue by pet type (dog, cat, etc.). Growth rates by segment. New customer distribution by pet type.

Segment health:

One segment declining while others are stable might indicate competitive pressure in that specific market.

Creating a daily dashboard

Consolidate these metrics into a daily review habit.

Morning check:

Review previous day’s key metrics. Compare to baseline expectations. Flag anomalies for investigation.

Alert thresholds:

Set up alerts for metrics outside normal ranges. Get notified when replenishment orders drop, when cancellations spike, or when site errors increase.

Metrics to prioritize for daily pet supply tracking

Focus on these daily metrics:

Replenishment order count versus expected. Subscription changes (new, cancelled, skipped). Stock-out status for key products. New customer acquisition count and source. Returning customer percentage. AOV versus baseline. Site performance and error rates. Email campaign performance. Customer service volume and categories. Top-moving products.

Pet supply’s predictable patterns make daily tracking especially valuable. When metrics deviate from expectations, you know something changed—and can respond quickly.