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 Dog
Daycare Demographics
Using Demographics to Determine Your Dog Daycare Client Base.
A note before we get deep into demographics, you must understand that
client base demographics are the single most important factor in your
success, it does not matter how nice or modern your Dog Daycare facility is or how many
services you provide. If you open in an area that does not have the
proper customer base to support it, it will fail. Just because your city or
town does not have a dog daycare does not mean that it can support one, nor
does it guarantee success in that area if you open one. In this
section I will explain the things you need to know about demographics if you
want to open a successful Dog Daycare facility. A good place to start
this research is
www.city-data.com and
http://en.wikipedia.org.
Begin your Dog Daycare knowledge quest by looking at the census information,
as it will provide information that you need to seriously research your area before opening.
Understanding Dog Daycare Demographics
In the
following Paragraphs we will explore exactly how you break down the
demographic information for the area in which you plan to open a dog
daycare. We will use information obtained from the two sites listed above to
break down in detail how to determine the number of dogs available for your
proposed Dog Daycare.
Location:
Florida
City: Average Town
Population:
46,451*
*This is a deceptive figure and one that you
need to analyze much closer if you really want to get a good idea of how
many customers are really available for a Dog Daycare business.
The first step in
doing this is to determine the number of households in your area, based upon
population. In the event that you are unable to obtain this figure
then use the population for your area and divide by 2.67 (the national
average for individuals per household) this may give a smaller number of
households making your figure more conservative and letting you err on the
side of caution.
The average
household size was 2.25.
46451 (population) / 2.25 (average individuals per
household) = 20,644 households
The next step is to
determine the actual number of dog owning households in the area as these
are potential customers for your Doggie Daycare. We do this by
going to the
American Veterinary Association Web site and clicking on
Market Research Statistics and then onto United States Pet Ownership or you
can simply click
here.
There you will find
that you need to take the number of households in your area and multiply it
by .361 (36%) to find out how many of these households actually own dogs and
could be future Dog Day Care Customers.
20,644 households x .361 = 7,452 dog owning
households in the area
Now thanks to the efforts of numerous pet supply companies, veterinary
organizations and the millions of dollars that they spent on market research
it has been determined that the average dog owning household has 1.6 dogs.
This allows us to complete the next part of the equation, which is to
multiply the number of dog owning households by 1.6 and determine that
actual number of dogs in the area for the Doggy Day Care we wish to open.
7,329 Dog owning households x 1.6 = 11,923 Dogs
in this area.
This is the point where industry experience comes into play, as there is a
lot more to this figure that needs to be said. First off, looking at
the above number it would seem that this proposed Dog Day Care location is
going to be overwhelmed with dogs, especially if it is the the only facility
in the area. The problem is that while this number may look great if you
want to open a veterinary facility, it may not be ideal if you want to open
a Doggy Daycare. The reason for this is that all cities have laws in
place that stipulate the fact that dogs must be vaccinated for the
protection of the public and to prevent the spread of disease, and virtually
every dog will have to go to a vet at some point during their life. Yet
there is no requirement either legally or for the sake of the dogs health
that they need attend dog daycare on a regular basis. So the number
above is not an accurate representation of the number of dogs availableto
you as potential Doggy Daycare clients, it is merely a good estimate of the
total number of dogs in your area. If you decide to open your business
based solely on the above figure then your profits are not going to be what
you expected and if you based your expenses on what you expected to make
then you may be in some serious trouble.
To actually refine this figure and make it useful for someone that wishes to
open a dog daycare then we have to factor in a number of different variables
that create a more accurate representation of how many potential Dog Daycare
clients are available. This is done by understanding your target market and
further analyzing the demographics in your area as follows:
Our research has determined that people are not willing to drive or deviate
from their commute more than 5 miles to take their dog to daycare or 2.5
miles in one direction, it would be inconvenient for them to travel a great
distance out of the way while going to work, in morning traffic just to
bring their dog to you for daycare, and they would have to get up earlier
and nobody wants to do this. So in actually you have 20 square miles from
which to pull your clients from. You need to imagine a circular radius
extending out from your proposed location 2.5 miles in every direction. This
is where the majority of your clients will come from.
So the next number that you need is the population density for the area that
you plan on opening your dog daycare. This figure is also provided by
www.city-data.com
and tells us that for every square mile we have 2071 people
per square mile or 41420 people within our business radius, 11.9% less than
the population figure of 46,451 which reflects the population of the entire
city.
-
53.2% were married couples living together
-
20.8% of households had children under the age of 18 living with them
-
10.1% of the population is below the poverty line
Dog Daycare is a luxury service, and one in which people will need to have
the disposable income available if they wish to participate. Your clients
will generally be from the middle to upper class sections of society and it
is unlikely that those below the poverty line will utilize your services. So
the first step is to subtract out those individuals that more than likely do
not have the income available to bring their dog to daycare.
41,420 (population) – 10.1% (below poverty line) = 4,183 individuals below
the poverty line,
leaving 37,237 above the poverty line.
The vast majority of your clients will be two income families without
children; this allows them to spend on their pets what would have been spent
on children. To further refine the actual numbers of dogs available to you
for your dog daycare we take the population in your business radius above the poverty line and
subtract those unmarried individuals.
37,237 (population in business radius above the
poverty line) x .532 (53.2%) =
19,810 married
individuals or 8,804 married households.
The next step is to subtract the 20.8% of households that have children.
8,804 (married households) x .208 (20.8%) = 1,831 households with children
This leaves 6,973 households without children.
To go even further we need to look at the age spread of the population in
the area
-
18.7% under the age of 18
-
5.4% from 18 to 24
-
21.0% from 25 to 44
-
24.2% from 45 to 64
-
30.7%
65 years of age or older
-
Median age
for the area is 49
As covered above most of your clients are going to be individuals that work
and have multiple incomes. The age ranges of your typical dog daycare
customer will be between 25 and 64 (65 is retirement age and they no longer
have a need for daycare, under 25 and they more than likely have not
established themselves or do not have the income available to pay for your
services). This is not a perfect demographic as the median age of this
community combined with the percentage over 65 tells us that this is a
retirement community- not a hustling bustling upper middle class
neighborhood. The one note about retirement communities is that there will
generally be a lot of doctors in the area making your 25-44 year old
demographic more wealthy. Optimally you would want greater than 50% of the
area population to be in the 25-64 age group the higher the better and 15%
or less for the 65 or older age group. Now take the new figure of 6,973
households and subtract 36.1% (5.4% for the 18-24 age group and 30.7% for
the 65 + age group; the under 18 group is children and has already been
accounted for by making the household number reflect only those households
without children)
6,973 (married households above the poverty line without children and
within your business radius) x .361 (36.1%) = 2517 households out of target
age range.
This leaves 4,456 households without children within target age range
4,456 x .361 (AVA figure for determining dog owning households) = 1,608 dog
owning households that meet our criteria ( x 1.6 AVA figure for determining
actual dogs) =
2,572 dogs (89% less than the original number of 11,923
dogs.)
This is a little lower than ideal but there is still enough income available
to support a small well managed and efficiently operated facility.
Optimally want the median income to be above $42,000 per year.
This leaves a total of 1608 dog owning households with a total of 2,572 dogs
within the area that meet our criteria. Our research shows that
between 3% and 5% of
these individuals will take their dog to daycare if it is available leaving
us with with a low total of 77 households and 123 dogs. A 98% drop from the
11,983 dogs that we originally started with!
This is the reason it is
so important to offer additional services to bring clients in the door. Dog
Daycare by itself is generally not a large enough draw in these
average income communities to bring in the amount of customers needed to make the business
truly
profitable. However by adding boarding and grooming services you can
increase the number of clients available to you by 300%-600% as well as
increasing your income by 200%-$400%. This is also depends upon the price of
your services and
you have to make it affordable if you want to bring in more clients.
If you offer additional services such as Dog Grooming you can generally charge less than other groomers in the area to
build clients as you have multiple streams of income available to support
your business, all the while keep in mind that you are in this business
not just because you love dogs, but to make a profit!!. It’s much easier to
sit at home on the couch making nothing than to work 12-14 hour days, 6 days
a week and make nothing.
You need to do solid research before opening a Dog Day Care facility. The
most important part of that
research is basing your decisions on fact, not on what you believe that you
know about your community or whether or not your area currently has a doggie
daycare. In fact, your area may not be a suitable location to support
a dog daycare and this is the actual reason your community may be lacking
one .
Your decisions need to be based on
real numbers and facts if you plan to succeed.
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