Man’s best friend births pet food business idea. PHOTO | POOL
A man and his friend walk into a pet store to look for dog food at a busy mall in Nairobi. They are looking for dog food for a puppy that has found a new home.
They look in all the pet stores in that mall, move to another mall and many malls and a hungry puppy later they can’t find what they are looking for.
Taha Mohamedali and Tariq Karmali are those two men, now the owners of Petstore Kenya.
Their business started on this day or at least, the idea of their business was conceived on this day out of frustration.
Mr Mohamedali jokingly asked Mr Karmali, “why don’t we import a container of dog food?” That joke was expensive.
In the sense that it set them back close to Sh3 million to land and clear a containerful of dog food in Mombasa. Money Taha says was raised from their savings.
Once the container was in the country, they had more than enough food for Mr Mohamedali’s puppy and the other two that Mr Karmali had recently acquired and no storage space for the container.
If you are asking, they didn’t overfeed the puppies.
They started a business with the surplus dog food they had.
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“It started as a joke. After we had walked in malls and pet stores in the city with no success in finding what we were looking for, I told Tariq that we only had one option and that was to import the food.
“We researched, and we got contacts for manufacturers abroad for what we were specifically looking for, most of which was not available in the country. What we found was either not of good quality, expensive or repackaged products whose standards we couldn’t ascertain. And after one month it was me, my friend and one container,” says Mr Mohamedali stifling a giggle.
You’d think that having struggled to look for this food, they would keep the surplus for rainy days — or if you want, hungry dog days.
Except they started looking for buyers in the places they had looked for the food earlier.
“We knocked on doors, pet stores, supermarkets, vet shops and in pet-owners communities and networks we had. Around the same time, a local security company that keeps dogs advertised looking for suppliers of the food we had in stock. It was a month’s supply for the company. It is then that we discovered that there was a gap for internationally certified pet foods, and we jumped into it as a business.
“We got incorporated in 2017 as importers and distributors of pet products and pet food. This includes dry food, wet foods, toys and accessories, among others,” he says.
They started distributing the pet food in July same year with support from friends and family.
“We had other business we ran, I was in construction and Tariq was into logistics. But a business opportunity was staring at us, so we jumped into it. My wife became an amateur web developer to support the online side of the business,” adds Mr Mohamedali.
They started supplying regularly to big stores. This was good except that it affected their cash flow and big stores take up to 90 days to pay. So, they took loans to stay afloat.
From that initial team of three, they now have 75 employees working at their two shops, warehouses and distribution channels across the country.
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They now have a board of external directors who help them in managing the business and making crucial decisions.
PetStore Kenya has moved from docking one, 20-foot container in the first year to more than 60, selling pet foods and products catering to about 30,000 pets monthly.
The entrepreneurs are now on most e-commerce shops like Jumia, Glovo and others to reach their clients easily and on demand.
They have an online shop as well and— in the words of Mr Mohamedali — very affordable courier services for their buyers.
Additionally, they now work with pet rescue and care centres like the Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals, TNR Trust Nairobi and many others.
Taha Mohamedali and Tarik Karmali, the owners of PetStore Kenya. PHOTO | POOL
Mr Mohamedali is a dog whisperer, and he says, these partnerships are very close to his heart.
PetStore Kenya makes documentaries to create awareness of pet care in collaboration with these partners, he says.
“We decided as a company to engage in community development. I love dogs and I love animals in general and the only way I could serve animals, which are now the source of my income, is to ensure that they are taken care of.
“We target people, especially in communities where you will easily find stray animals. They are looking at opening two more shops in the city and building a mobile application that will encompass all pet-related services in one place.
Their imports are from as many as six countries.
“We source high-quality products from at least six countries. We have ensured that all our suppliers are ISO certified as a measure of quality control. We only import products that have been internationally certified in their places of origin.”
Over the last two years, Mr Mohamedali says, PetStore Kenya has met a few challenges occasioned by the fluctuating exchange rates, the pandemic and other international scale challenges that have led to sharp spikes in prices of products, which sadly have been transferred to buyers in part for them to remain in business.
Taxes have also been on a constant rise and he finds this punitive, especially for people in the import business.
“The supply chain was greatly affected when the pandemic happened, it bent the business strenuously. That and the ever-changing dollar exchange rates have been a major source of headache for our business,” he says.
So, why not manufacture the said products locally?
“We could eventually, but a lot must be done to ensure there is a good business environment whereby, manufacturing locally will not eat greatly into our margins and eventually make our products very expensive.” He concludes.
If there is any lesson, he has learned in the business, is to avoid the debt burden.
“Overborrowing affects your operations in the sense that, you start working to pay back more than you work to make profits.”
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