In 2019, Julian Freyer turned his passion into a reality, founding Petz Park, an Australian-owned brand specialising in dog and cat health. He always had a love for pets and came to realise that their health was an overlooked gap in the Australian market.
“I launched Petz Park to provide Australian pet owners with top-tier supplements to keep their pets healthy at every age,” Freyer told Retailbiz in a recent interview.
“When I began this journey, I knew cultivating brand loyalty was key to long-term success. With this in mind, I became laser-focused on creating quality products that actually work. Petz Park is committed to providing a best-in-class experience throughout the entire customer journey. With over 3,800 high-quality reviews logged via Trustpilot on our website, we have and continue to validate this promise.”
When Freyer launched Petz Park, he bootstrapped the business to prove the concept before taking on additional risk by adding employees, partners or investors into the mix. However, at the time, he was unaware a global pandemic was on its way and Petz Park was about to be presented with a unique business opportunity for growth.
“When lockdowns began, sales went through the roof as many Australians decided that this was the perfect time to get a pet. Until this point, I had been managing a just-in-time inventory method, but with the increased demand, I didn’t want to risk a stockout knowing how much it would compromise our established customer loyalty and our ability to reach full sales potential,” Freyer said.
“As the pandemic raged, the timeline from placing inventory orders to receiving them continued to grow exponentially, meaning I had to order a higher volume of stock earlier than usual. On top of this, I wanted to increase our advertising spending to take advantage of consumers suddenly spending a huge proportion of their day online.”
Freyer then came across Wayflyer – a revenue-based funding offering he hadn’t heard of before, but soon realised was a genius service to help fuel the growth of online businesses.
“We operate a Shopify store and Wayflyer plugs straight into it with their app to read our performance data. The setup takes seconds and is hassle-free. The experience we had from that first point of contact until we had our first cash advance approved was just incredible and took mere hours,” he said.
Wayflyer provided the support needed to double Petz Park’s marketing spending and secure stable inventory supplies. With it, Petz Park saw 40 to 60% month-on-month growth and was able to improve its Google and Facebook ad performance. Overall, Petz Park saw nearly 600% year-on-year growth in 2021.
“As we continue to grow, so too does the Petz Park team, as I have slowly started to fill key positions with the right people. We’ve also recently expanded our product range to include cat supplements and have several exciting product launches coming up,” Freyer said.
“We recently finalised our sixth cash round with Wayflyer after having already undergone five rounds in under 15 months. With the funding, we’re looking towards expanding into new markets and are excited at the prospect of potentially reaching and helping more customers with their pets’ health.”