🐾 Paws & Reflect: Our 2024 Recap 🧡

Welcome to our 2024 year recap! This year has been an incredible journey at Petplace, filled with exciting events, community connections, and plenty of tail-wagging moments. Let’s dive into our highlights after this from our Managing Director, Sion

“Thank you to our team for their hard work and dedication during a very busy year for petplace! A big thank you also to our loyal customers. During a difficult time for retail, your continued support means a lot to us. We’re looking forward to continue working alongside our suppliers and fantastic teams to bring our customers an even better 2025! Merry Christmas, love Sion & Paul 🎄”

Supporting Our Community Through Charity

At Petplace, giving back is at the heart of what we do. Throughout 2024, we proudly supported several charities, including Hope House, greyhound rescues, local wildlife charities, and LGBTQ+ organisations. Thanks to your generous support, we raised vital funds and spread awareness for these incredible causes. Together, we made a real difference!

On top of our charity efforts, we hosted demo days featuring top brands like Carnilove, Tribal, and Acana, as well as equine brands for our horse-loving customers. These events offered insights and product tips, helping pet owners make informed choices.

Mold Store Gets a Makeover

One of our biggest milestones in 2024 was the complete refresh of our Mold store. With a brand-new layout and modernised design, we’ve created a better shopping experience for our customers. The feedback has been fantastic, and we’re thrilled that you love the updates as much as we do.

Welcoming New Brands and Expanding Loyalty Perks

This year, we expanded our brand family, welcoming several new names—including the popular Pawsome Paws Boutique. More brands also joined our loyalty program, giving our customers even more rewards and exclusive deals.

Business Development Manager, Matt:

“It’s been great to see some new suppliers come on board this year! From newer players in the pet trade (pawsome paws) to well established ones (Hagen). It’s also been good to see brands like Animology, Royal Canin and Arden grange all join our loyalty scheme. 2024 Highlight for me was relaying mold as this has really freshened up the store and the feedback continues to be positive from our customers.”

February: A Month Full of Love

February was all about celebrating love and our furry friends!

• Valentine’s Paw-ty: Our dog parks hosted prosecco, cake, puppuccinos, and socialising for pet owners.
• Love Your Pet Day: Free puppuccinos in all stores had tails wagging.
• Pet Dental Month: Discounts and educational blogs helped promote healthy smiles for pets.

March: Celebrating Our Team

March saw the spectacular Petplace Team Awards, where we celebrated the hard work and dedication of our staff. We had a DJ, delicious food, a magician, photobooth, caricaturists, fire performers, and more. Generous prizes from our suppliers added to the excitement.

We also treated pet mums to free tea or coffee on Mother’s Day!

April: Education and Enrichment

In April, we hosted:

• Kong Day: Featuring discounts, freebies, and expert talks to help pet owners embrace Kong enrichment.
• Pet ID Week: We offered discounts on ID Tags and helped pet owners with the correct info needed.

May: Adventure Awaits

May was all about adventures with our Kurgo campaign. Customers enjoyed 20% off adventure gear, boosted by a stunning promotional video shot by Paul Blythin. It inspired lots of outdoor exploring for pets and their owners.

June: Celebrating Pride Month

June brought vibrant Pride celebrations with Pride in the Park in Abergele. From face painting and bouncy castles to burger vans and freebies, the event was a joyful celebration of love and community. We’re honored to support and celebrate diversity.

Summer Fun: July & August

Summer was packed with activities, including:

• Pentre Mawr Fun Day: Our team judged a dog show at this local event.
• North Wales Pride Parade: We proudly sponsored the parade in Llangefni, offering free bandanas, badges, and doggy ice cream.
• Mold Open Day: Celebrating Mold’s refresh with falconry, animal petting, face painting, and more.
• Dog Weekend in Gledrid: Featuring dog photographers, behaviourists, brand demos, and exciting raffles.
• Denbigh & Flint Show: We sponsored and attended the Denbigh & Flint Show with goodie bags and met lots of local pet-owners.
• Pride in the Park, Llangefni: With face painting, bouncy castle, fresh pizzas, celebrating community, free dog park plus freebies throughout the day.

Llangefni Store Manager Chris said

“” Well another eventful year at Petplace Llangefni Nice to see our regular customers supporting all our events throughout the year and nice to see lots of new faces becoming our regular customers!! It’s been a very memorable year. Pride  in the park was amazing, lots of fun face painting and hook a duck!!  and much more, lots of birthday parties in the park , Santa paws coming to the store  despite the weather was magical !!

Just wanted to say a massive thank you to all our customers and our team !! Here’s to a bigger and better 2025!!”

October: Safety and Spooky Fun

As the days grew shorter, our Be Safe, Be Seen campaign highlighted hi-vis gear for pet safety. October also brought our Fireworks Safety Campaign, helping pets stay calm during noisy celebrations.

Mold’s Howl-oween event was a spooky delight, featuring games, a dog photographer, and behaviorist advice.

Ruthin also held a colouring competition with children from Ysgol Borthyn drawing their favourite animal which was judged by local actor, Sean Jones. We also donated some wild bird food and accessories to the school to encourage the children to get involved in feeding wildlife this winter.

Ruthin Store Manager Belinda said about the year

‘We’ve had lots of new dogs coming into store, which is lovely and of course we all love having cuddles. I also enjoyed getting out and about to Denbigh & Flint show, it was great to see so many of our customers but the highlight of my year was the drawing competition and going to the school to donate wild bird items. A massive thank you to all our customers and community for supporting us this year, we really do appreciate it.”

Gledrid Equine Day was a huge success with savings on equine products, rug wash offers, raffles & refreshments. We also raised vital funds for Hope House.

Gledrid Store Manager Steve had this to say about his busy 2024:

“Another amazing year seeing so many beautiful pets in store and meeting their pet parents too! We have had lots of new products arriving every week and some great events. Our dog weekend, poultry day and equine day were so much fun, we especially loved having chickens in store! As always, I would like to thank our customers for their continued support. Have a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.”

December: Festive Celebrations

We wrapped up the year with festive cheer:

• Dog Park Christmas Paw-ty: Featuring mince pies, hot drinks, games, music, and a festive jumper competition.
• Santa Paws Events: At Abergele and Llangefni, pets took photos with Father Christmas, received goody bags, and helped raise funds for Paws Off Duty.
• Christmas Jumper Day: Festive pups got a free puppuccino!

Looking Ahead to 2025

As we near the end of 2024, we’re already looking forward to another year of exciting events and community connections. Thank you for being part of the Petplace family. Here’s to a fantastic 2025 filled with more memories, milestones, and pet-friendly fun!

Happy New Year!