A dog-eat-dog market
While things look good for breeding and veterinary services, other pet businesses have to fight for profits in an increasingly competitive environment.
Big investors, both foreign and domestic, are looking to take a bite out the Chinese pet market, Cen said. Some have no experience with pets and are just throwing money at the industry hoping to earn quick profits.
Several multinationals, including Nestle SA and Procter & Gamble Co, have eagerly entered the domestic pet care market, Reuters reported.
With some much investment pouring in, many independent pet stores in Dongguan, South China's Guangdong Province, have been bought up or have shut down, Cen said.
Even the big dogs are having a hard time in the saturated Chinese pet care market.
The single-floor Petland store in Shanghai used to be much larger, with multiple floors, said a store manager surnamed Xie, who did not want to disclose her full name.
Xie said that some nearby pet stores that had been doing well have shut down in recent years.
"I think the pet shop market is more or less saturated," said Zhang, the Petland employee. "It is hard to find a neighborhood in Shanghai without at least one pet store."
A kennel with a spa
To avoid the fierce competition that always arises for an easily copied business, some entrepreneurs have explored new ventures that target the upper-end of the pet care market.
Shanghai resident Qi Jing got the idea for her pet hotel, which she opened in July 2015, after she noticed that the city was full of pets stores, but lacked a proper kennel.
Qi's hotel goes well beyond typical kennel services. The pets sleep in glass rooms complete with cots, mattresses and sheets. They are monitored around the clock and can take swimming classes and visit the hotel's spa.
"The kennel market is growing," Qi said. "Many foreign customers told us that there are a lot of places like ours in their countries. But in China, they are desperate to find one."
Yet more entrepreneurs are trying to get a foothold in the market.
"People have come from as far away as Chifeng, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to talk to us about opening a similar pet hotel [in their hometown]," she said.
"The pet hotel's operating cost are high, but the business has started generating profits in recent months."
Other niche pet services, such as pet matchmaking, pet photography and door-to-door pet housekeeping have also emerged in China.
"In the future, the markets for pet welfare and pet healthcare are sure to expand," Cen said.
Still, he noted China's pet care market remains "20 years behind that of the U.S."
According to a July report by the data publishing platform iimedia.cn, 62 percent of the U.S. families own pets, compared with about only 15 percent in China's first-tier cities.
