How will the pet franchise sector fare in the changing business waters of the new decade? It's a question on many minds, as pet franchises have rapidly grown in the past decade.
Laura Bennett has written a very detailed forecast of the 11 trends that will shape the pet franchise sector in 2010 over at the Small Business Trends website. The prognosis seems to be that economy will still, of course, play a major role in the development of the sector. As a result, franchisors and franchisees will have to be more self-critical of how their business operates.
But just because times are hard, it doesn't mean that people will abandon their pets entirely. In fact, as America's pet population ages, Ms Bennett predicts that there will more money spent on supplies and medicine and that pet insurance will become more common. Ms Benett also suggests an interesting phenomenon called 'pet health care' that might be the next pet big franchising sector.
She also predicts social media outlets like blogs and Twitter to play a greater role in defining the pet services and businesses that will survive this hard economic moment.
These are interesting times for pet lovers. We'll be watching how the industry fares in the coming months.