The Chewy Effect: How Online Retail Is Reshaping Veterinary Care
The Changing Landscape of Pet Spending
Over the past few years, veterinary medicine has faced some serious competition, and it’s not coming from the clinic down the street. It’s coming from online retailers and big-box stores.
The 2025 Veterinary Industry Benchmark Report from iVET360 calls this shift “The Chewy Effect,” and it is changing how pet owners make decisions about where to spend their money.
Pet parents are still committed to caring for their animals, but they are now doing it in ways that bypass the traditional veterinary pharmacy. From food and supplements to flea, tick, and heartworm preventives, clients are shopping for convenience—and often for price.
How It’s Impacting Practices
When clients fill prescriptions or buy products elsewhere, it doesn’t just affect pharmacy revenue. It removes critical touchpoints that keep them connected to your practice.
Every refill, every dietary recommendation, every quick pickup at the front desk is an opportunity to engage. When those moments disappear, so does the chance to educate and reinforce preventive care.
Our analysts estimate that this shift is doing more than reducing pharmacy sales—it’s cutting off a valuable feedback loop. When clients purchase preventives directly from you, you see the compliance data. You know what products are being used and when. When they buy online, that visibility is gone. That makes it harder to follow up, track adherence, and ensure consistent care.
The loss of those insights forces practices to rely even more heavily on service revenue and price increases, which can create additional strain on client relationships.
Why Pet Owners Are Changing Their Habits
The motivation behind this behavior is simple: convenience and cost.
According to recent industry research, most pet owners now expect the same kind of seamless purchasing experience for their pets as they do for themselves. They want quick checkout, free shipping, and subscription options that take the work out of remembering refills.
In many cases, they also assume online retailers are cheaper, even when that’s not always true. Some practices offer competitive prices but fail to communicate that fact clearly. Others make purchasing from the clinic less convenient than it should be.
For example, if a client can’t easily request refills online or has to wait days for approval, they’ll find an alternative that fits their lifestyle. It’s not disloyalty, it’s a reflection of what modern consumers expect.
Competing on Experience, Not Price
Veterinary hospitals will never out-discount the major online retailers, and they don’t need to. What practices can do is offer an experience that digital competitors can’t replicate.
That starts with transparency and ease. Use your website, app, and reminder systems to make reordering simple. Offer text-to-refill options or one-click reorder links from your practice pharmacy. Make sure your clients know that you carry the same products, at comparable prices, backed by a team that knows their pet’s history.
Most importantly, reframe the conversation from price to value. When clients buy directly from you, they’re not just getting a product—they’re getting professional oversight and guaranteed authenticity. They’re also helping to sustain the practice that provides care for their pet year-round.
Turning Lost Sales Into Stronger Relationships
The Chewy Effect doesn’t have to be a death sentence for practice revenue. In fact, it can be a catalyst for improvement.
The practices that are adapting fastest are those integrating in-house online pharmacies or direct-ship options. These tools meet clients where they are while keeping the connection within your ecosystem.
Others are leveraging call tracking and follow-up systems to identify missed opportunities. For instance, if a client calls about a product but doesn’t buy, that’s a signal for a follow-up call or email. Small touches like that can recover revenue and rebuild trust.
And while retail may be shifting, one thing remains the same: clients still want guidance. They just need it delivered in a way that fits their lives.
What This Means for 2025 and Beyond
The Chewy Effect is part of a broader evolution in veterinary medicine—one that rewards convenience, communication, and clarity.
Rather than seeing retail disruption as competition, forward-thinking practices are using it as motivation to modernize. They are expanding access, integrating technology, and reclaiming the parts of the client relationship that matter most.
In the end, it’s not about where clients buy—it’s about how connected they feel to the team that cares for their pets.
The future belongs to practices that bridge that gap with empathy, efficiency, and insight.
