Lisa Baronoff started Walkee Paws in 2018 to find a product that was more comfortable than a dog booty and easier for pet owners to put on when the weather turns cold. She launched the online-only business that sells leggings for dogs on WalkeePaws.com.
Since its launch, Walkee Paws has grown its online sales about 100% each year. And in Q1 2021, the brand grew about 900% compared with 2020’s Q1 thanks to the prolonged cold weather and its feature on the ABC TV show “Shark Tank” in February.
Founder and CEO Lisa Baronoff showcases Walkee Paws on “Shark Tank.”
“I’d been in the hosiery industry and came up with the idea for dog leggings. It really took off instantly, which was fantastic,” CEO Baronoff says.
But Walkee Paws—although succeeding in generating online sales—was struggling to decide how to price its products. It had no competitor as a benchmark to compare its products’ prices to, Baronoff says.
While attending a virtual ecommerce summit last fall in which retailers were assigned a random vendor to chat with, Walkee Paws was paired up with artificial intelligence price analysis vendor Pricestack. The retailer installed Pricestack for free on Walkee Paws’ Shopify-powered ecommerce site. Pricestack’s typical base price is $499 per month.
Pricestack uses machine-learning software that reviews historical sales data to reveal the prices that shoppers are willing to pay for a brand’s products. The software deciphers the behavior of their shoppers using first-party Shopify and Google Analytics data, such as website traffic, past purchases, discount codes and seasonal sales. Pricestack forecasts how much revenue and profit different prices will generate moving forward by analyzing this data tied together.
“Within a couple of hours, it showed I was underpricing a lot of SKUs and showed potential revenue I could get,” Baronoff says. For example, there was a leggings product priced at $24.99, but Pricestack’s software said it should be $34.99, more than 40% higher, and people would buy it at that higher price level, Baronoff says.
But she was nervous to raise prices ahead of the Cyber 5 shopping holiday (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday). Still, she agreed to try out the higher prices.
“I did what they suggested but used my own knowledge as well, and the sales have been tremendous,” Baronoff says. “If I didn’t have the model to show me, I wouldn’t have been comfortable doing that. I raised the prices thinking I’d have to drop them back again.” But so far, she says she hasn’t lowered them again.
At the same Walkee Paws raised its prices, it also removed its free return policy because of how often shoppers request returns for sizing issues.
“I wanted a deterrent for people who were doing so many returns. So, now I charge for returns but do free exchanges,” Baronoff says. “We didn’t see any fall back from doing that.”
As a result of implementing Pricestack’s technology, Walkee Paws raised its revenue per shopper by 57%. And it generated a 71.2% boost in profit per shopper.
With its prices set and online sales growing, Walkee Paws is looking to grow its digital footprint. Thanks to its appearance on “Shark Tank” in February, it’s fielding requests from businesses in Japan and Argentina, as well as pet supplies retailer Chewy (owned by Petsmart Inc., No. 16 in the Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000).
It also plans to add more products this year. “We’re looking at ways to leverage the brand and this is a great opportunity to add products,” Baronoff says. “Once people find our leggings, there’s an opportunity for upselling with other products.”
Walkee Paws is still a customer of Pricestack and plans to use its technology again when it adds new products.