Target Pairs With BarkBox To Offer Cool Pet Products In-Store

Lori Ennis
by Lori Ennis
If you love BarkBox, you’re going to be excited by this news. Target and popular subscription service have teamed up to offer cool pet products in store locations.


Let’s be honest. You go to a store and you see something you want, but in this day and age, you don’t buy until you price match, right? C’mon…we all do it. We go to Amazon and we see what’ll cost us there (or an assortment of other retailers) and we compare.


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Retailers know this–and in effort to make that happen just a little less often, they’re thinking outside of their brick and mortar boxes to see how they can continue to compete. Hence, an alliance with popular online/subscription service BarkBox that will bring those super cool products you often see fabulously marketed on social media right into your local Target–where they’ll be marketed under the “Bark” line of pet products.


In case you’ve been living under a rock, BarkBoxes are cool subscription boxes for our pooches… full of stuff that has you and your dog have never seen or tried, dropped off at your door monthly. Target will have those same products in-store, giving pet parents even more options in an Amazon-type world.


Target officials like to offer the newest and coolest things to their customers, and they recognize that online and subscription-based offerings have a great following. Pair that with the, “You never leave Target without spending at least $100!” phenomena and it’s a winning combination for brands and consumers alike.


BarkBox launched in 2012, has over 500,000 subscribers and over $100,000 million in sales last year. Not too shabby, and totally up Target’s alley of being the retailer that attracts younger and higher-income shoppers. Recent studies show that Millenials are spending way more on pets than any other generation, and looking for high-end pet products all the time. This pairing will certainly appeal to that demographic.


Related: Survey: We’d Rather Have Pet-Related Perks Than Pets in the Workplace


And, having products in an actual store will be an opportunity for Bark, as CEO Matt Meeker says they realize not every pet parent is into subscription services. This will allow them to get their products to pet parents everywhere, making more dogs even happier.


Target clearly is looking to make it’s pet parents happy, as it’s also expanding it’s in-brand pet line Boots & Barkley to include 200 new pet items, as well as partnering with Wit & Delight’s Kate Arends for a pet clothing and accessories line.


Good job, Target! Good job!

Lori Ennis
Lori Ennis

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