Chewy says its pet pharmacy is a billion-dollar business

Fido’s worm pills prove a very healthy addition to the company’s Chewy bottom line of pet subscription boxes.

On its earnings call Wednesday night (Dec. 6), the company told investors that its growing pet pharmacy business is on track to bring in $1 billion a year based on how things have gone over the past twelve months.

“On this scale, Chewy is the number one pet pharmacy in America,” CEO Sumit Singh said on the call, reiterating that it was number one. claim since March is safe.

The company, which she keeps first Investor Day later this month in New York City, entered the pet pharmacy business in 2018. That move positioned it well to take advantage of the growing customer base of people who became pet parents during the pandemic. If it could get those people to order food and toys, why not get them to order medicine?

“We believe every active Chewy customer should also be a Chewy Pharmacy customer,” Singh told investors last quarter.

Although fans of mom-and-pop pet pharmacies have something of the same criticism of big-box, online competitors than their human counterparts—the face-to-face touch isn’t the same, it can be difficult to compete on price—people still flock to big retailers in droves. Former Chewy parent company PetSmart launched an online pharmacy in 2021, is Petco also expands rapidly in pharmacy services, and Walmart announced in September that it is looking to further build its pet health operations.

Tough also told investors that its revenue was slightly lower than analysts expected at $2.7 billion for the quarter, with profit beating expectations at 15 cents a share. Both figures were improvements from the same time last year. Shares were slightly lower in Thursday trading.

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