Mollybox: A New Way to Pamper Your Cat
Pet care start-ups are not a new thing. As people spend more money on pet-related products, the pet market has been growing strong. According to a 2018 report by Grand View Research, Inc. Rise, the global pet care market is expected to reach $202.6 billion by 2025. MollyBox, a Shanghai-based pet care start-up that focuses on cat products, secured a total of $13 million in its Series B financing round in 2019, making it one of the most promising pet care brands around the world. How did MollyBox attract such substantial investment? What is the recipe that leads to its success? With our 4 Facets of Brand Positioning tool, let’s find out the secret of the formula.
Truth: More Than a Subscription Box
One of the key factors to MollyBox’s success is the one-of-a-kind experience it creates. Mollybox has developed a unique business model in China's pet food sector. By introducing a subscription-based service that can be customized by the cat owners, the brand offers flexible services for daily supplies that includes cat food and snacks, toys, and cat litters etc. Cats are sensitive to the environment. MollyBox carefully selects the products in the box based on season and temperature, offering a hassle-free experience for cat owners. The brand also puts huge efforts into building its brand presence. With a great sense of fashion and innovation, the brand invites artists to design the packaging of the boxes and collaborates with comics, movies and mobile games such as Onmyoji (one of the popular role-playing mobile games in China) and Xi’An museum, to create various kinds of design that are popular among the young generation. By delivering a unique customer experience and outstanding brand image, Mollybox successfully achieves a high customer retention rate with low acquisition cost, making it one of the most promising pet care brands in China.
Vision: Hassle-free Pet-keeping Life with Much Happier and Healthier Cats
The vision of MollyBox is to let cats live a quality life and turn keeping a cat into a hassle-free experience. The founder and CEO of MollyBox Yi Ju points out, people in the pet industry have been focusing on making products for pets, while few of them think about how to keep pets well. With the subscription model, MollyBox helps cat owners not only to choose the right products for their cats but also provides professional tips on how to take care of your feline friend. It saves its users a lot of time and energy on searching and decision making for what to buy or use for their cats. This is how it works: The products in the box are carefully selected for each customer based on a survey about their cat. Mollybox then will select suitable products for each cat and deliver the box on a regular basis or as a one-time delivery depending on different service subscription.
Universe: Effortless Cat-raising Life Led by Science and Big Data
Modern cat owners often end up having not enough time to do extensive research to select the most suitable food, toys or supplement for their cats, With the help of big data, coupled with the analysis of the current pet industry, MollyBox has selected the product ecology with personalized quality and consumption. After the MollyBox team conducted surveys and portraits of a large number of cat keepers’ living habits, cat-raising habits, the brand offers users a monthly delivery of what they need. The brand saves users’ time and energy in search, selection, payment and other processes. Customers can enjoy great convenience and no need to worry about forgetting to buy cat food due to heavy work.
Personality: A Thoughtful cat keeper
The products that come in each subscription box are not randomly selected. Each box has more than 3000 SKUs to choose from, and the product quality and formula contained in each box are strictly controlled. Every box contains staple food selected by the user and seasonal toys and daily necessities selected by the veterinarian. Considering the cat’s need, the box is equipped with a scratcher which is a must for each cat owner. Each box can be used as a container for pet supplies, and users can choose their favorite box to create unique pet toys or supplies. These unique and sustainable innovations not only enrich the product ecology of MollyBox, but also better meet consumers' individualized pet needs.
Apart from offering thoughtful services for cats, MollyBox also shows its love of cats in other ways. The brand updates its pet-related content called “一犬一话”, sharing knowledge on pet-related products and pet-feeding tips, offer educational content to customers to take better care of their furry friends. The brand also donates to two pet saving NGOs, to save lives of stray cats and dogs, being a true thoughtful cat keeper.
Among the fierce competition in the pet industry, MollyBox stands out with its unique understanding of the market, and very deep understanding of the pain points of cat owners. While the success of MollyBox is highly connected to China’s rising pet market, the brand has developed its user experience and products, and seen promising growth. With the attention to make good products and the knowledge of customer needs, MollyBox is dedicated to bringing quality life for not only their customers but also for the little furry friends.