B2B ecommerce and direct to consumer store for Mon Ami: two channels at once

Mon Ami is the human grade pet food, snack and dental product brand of Marini & Cía, an Argentine manufacturer with its own plant that uses fresh meat and human grade ingredients.

In early 2020 it sold almost exclusively through pet shops and distributors, with an institutional site and no sales operation: the brand only reached the consumer through whoever resold it.

And two channels had to open at once, which are not the same business.

• Consumers do not know the differentiator: human grade is not explained in an ordinary product listing, and without that the price has no justification.
• Choosing is hard: how much food a dog needs depends on species, age, weight and activity, and nobody buys what they cannot calculate.
• Shops reorder by phone: wholesale needed its own channel, with regional price lists and different pack formats.

The launch coincided with the start of the pandemic, when online sales stopped being a complement.

We opened both channels simultaneously with different sales models: one that explains and recommends, and one that restocks fast.

The focus was not the platform but each channel answering to its own buyer.

The direct store, which has to explain

• Organized by species and line: healthy food, healthy snacks, dental care, cats and promotions.
• Normalized listings and brand pages telling the company story and the human grade concept, with raw material certification.
• Mon Journal, the content section, to sustain the explanation beyond the listing.

A recommender that calculates, not suggests

• From species, age, weight, activity level and body condition of the pet, it computes the daily and monthly ration.
• It translates that ration into the recommended purchase in boxes, which is what the customer actually has to buy.

The wholesale channel, which has to restock

• Catalog of 60 trade presentations across displays, refills and unit packs, with bulk product import.
• Regional price lists and the Fun Pet & Pop line from the same plant.
• Custom logistics table by SKU, postal code, weight and volume to quote shipping.

Architecture and technology

• Two stores on PrestaShop, with separate catalogs, pricing logic and audiences.
• During the transition the domain was temporarily redirected to a MercadoShops store to avoid cutting sales.

Learn more about ecommerce development and software development.

The brand went from depending on whoever resold it to running two channels of its own growing in parallel.

Starting point

• Sales almost exclusively through pet shops and distributors.
• Institutional site with no sales operation of its own.
• 84 orders in May 2020, the first full month, at 0.47% conversion.

Results

• 157 orders in May 2021, 87% above the first full month.
• Conversion rate from 0.47% to 1.05% over the same period.
• Peaks of 186 and 187 monthly orders, in July 2020 and April 2021.
• Wholesale portal with 60 products, from 225 monthly visits in June 2020 to around 6,500 in April 2021.

Strategic impact

• The recommender turns a technical decision into a concrete purchase, which is where the customer was being lost.
• The wholesale channel takes reordering off the phone without competing with retail.