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Amazon.com recently premiered a new online pet store, wag.com. Don’t go looking for Amazon shipping fulfillment or for your prime membership to apply, however; wag.com is technically part of a subsidiary Amazon bought back in 2006, and there’s no hint of Wag’s corporate owner anywhere on the site.
Wag.com is a well-organized, colorful site divided into multiple sections based on the type of pet for which you want to shop. These range from dogs, cats, and small (mammal) pets to fish, birds, and reptiles. Once under a species section shoppers can then conduct their business by choosing to browse under other categories such as “everyday essentials,” “top sellers,” “brands we love,” and “ways to shop.”
Most of the groups are self-explanatory: “everyday essentials” covers common items owners of the particular type of pet need every day, such as food, enclosure items/maintenance, toys, and more. “Top sellers” needs no explanation, and “brands we love” could either be the most popular brands on the site, or perhaps ones with which Wag.com has entered into a promotional arrangement.
“Ways to shop” is the most curious of the categories. The “on sale” section falls under this heading, and for some of the pets, such as fish, it’s the only option found there. For other pets, such as dogs, more items appear under the heading. There’s the “eco pet” section with green pet items, the “pampered dog” boutique with spa treatments for dogs, and the “new pet” area, containing all the items one might need when getting a new pet.
Wag.com is easy to navigate and pleasing to the eye, so it seems like a perfect destination for a pet-loving avid online shopper. Though one wonders what it, and its sister sites Soap.com (for health/beauty) and Diapers.com (for baby stuff) offer that amazon.com doesn’t. What’s the point of subsidiary sales sites when Amazon’s the most famous shopping destination on the web?
It’s one thing for Amazon to buy out Wag’s parent company years ago, in order to eliminate the competition from an up-and-coming shopping site. Keeping those sites active prevents losing any loyal fan base.
But it’s another to create a new pet shopping site when Amazon’s own pets section is similarly organized to Wag’s and has a larger selection of merchandise. I just bought a new collar for my dog on Amazon over the weekend, and I can attest that Amazon both has a greater variety of collars and better prices for them than Wag.
The way I look at it is this: Wag is to Amazon what Scion is to Toyota: the latter company owns the former brand and makes no great secret of doing so, but the latter uses the former to go farther in a market it can’t. Scions are the cars Toyota makes to attempt to woo a younger audience that wants hipper, sleeker cars and that might be put off by Toyota’s reliable family car image.
All of the dog collars on Wag come in designs, from simple ones like gingham to featuring little pictures of fish or bones. No solid color plain collars available, and unless shopping for a tiny dog one won’t find prices much below $10.
While most of us might find that exorbitant or unnecessary, Wag fills a definite niche. If it’s yours, or if you just like window shopping of the online variety, stop by Wag to browse a fun selection of pet products.
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*(This image by Infographe_Elle is licensed under the morgueFile Free License.)