Amazon is exploring the possibility of providing veterinary telehealth services in an effort to rival Walmart. This comes from sources familiar with the situation informing CNBC. Walmart began providing free access to pet telehealth to those with a Walmart+ subscription earlier this year. Predicted to reach a total of $200 billion by the end of the decade, the U.S. pet market is seeing a major boost due to pet healthcare.
Amazon is reportedly looking into adding veterinary telehealth to its range of products in a bid to compete with Walmart, who began rolling out the service to Walmart+ customers in the start of this year. Amazon already has a strong presence in pet food and supplies, but has yet to make any meaningful investments in pet health - an area projected to be the driving force in the US$137 billion pet market. The individuals privy to the development have chosen to remain anonymous.
This veterinary telehealth setup allows for pet owners to have video meetings with veterinarians and technicians and operates similarly to the telemedicine services for humans. In the last few months, Walmart has teamed up with Pawp - a vet telehealth provider - to offer a free year-long subscription to its customers. This offer is due to expire by the 19th of November which coincides with Black Friday and the beginning of the peak pet shopping season.
In order to get this launched in time for the holidays, Amazon could partner with Pawp seeing as the later has already been successful in scaling with a major store such as Walmart. The e-commerce giant may also choose to team up with some of the other pet telehealth startups or even develop its own practice, which is an approach Chewy adopted during the coronavirus pandemic.
Amidst Amazon's health-care business showing mixed results, the company has made its commitment to the pet industry obvious from a Super Bowl advertisement that was run earlier this year - where a rescue dog and its family were featured, emphasising how they turned to Amazon for their supplies. When contacted, Amazon opted to not comment on the matter.
As the pet market becomes increasingly competitive, retailers are scrambling to broaden their offerings. According to research from Bloomberg Intelligence, the U.S. pet market is predicted to reach $200 billion by the end of the decade, with pet health care driving the surge. Companies such as Chewy, Walmart and Petco are implementing various strategies to stay ahead of the game and grow their market share; Chewy is going the telehealth, insurance and prescription route, whereas Petco is leaning on its physical stores to launch clinics and grooming centers. On the other hand, Walmart has entered a partnership with Pawp and has plans to open a dedicated pet services center in Dallas, Georgia. It is likely that if Amazon opts to venture into pet telehealth, they may incorporate this into its Amazon Prime subscription service. This would allow them to compete with Walmart+, which has implemented Pawp, and provide Amazon Prime customers with additional advantages.
The advent of veterinary telehealth during the pandemic made it a more convenient choice for pet owners than in-person visits, yet some vets expressed concern that it could be risky. Dr. Lori Teller, former president of the American Veterinary Medical Association and professor of telehealth at Texas A&M University, said although telehealth can be beneficial, she worries about companies that might be using it to push sales. "We can get into trouble with either delayed treatment or misdiagnosis, especially when the focus is more on the product than what is best for the animal," she noted to CNBC in an interview. "On the other hand, those providing general advice and triage services can help the profession, especially when it comes to after-hours issues or if the vet is having a busy day."Differing state and federal laws governing pet telehealth and what veterinarians can do when they have not seen the animal in person have prohibited the growth of pet telehealth, leading to a lobbying campaign to alter the existing regulations. Major organizations such as Chewy and Mars Veterinary Health (a subsidiary of Mars), as well as Amazon, have joined forces to fund said efforts. According to Senate disclosure records, Amazon and its related businesses have used around $430,000 this year for lobbying activities focused on "digital health oversight," "telemedicine," and the Food and Drug Administration, although it's uncertain if this was for human or animal health, or both.
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