Case Study: Pets at Home achieves optimized store assortment and better shopper experience with SymphonyAI

Delivering the best shopper experience regardless of store size

Pets at Home, the UK’s largest pet supplies retailer with about 450 stores ranging from roughly 3,000 to 21,000 sq ft, faced a complex assortment and space challenge: rising SKU counts, falling stockturns, and the need to fit veterinary and grooming services into varied store footprints while still giving customers the right choice in each location. To address this, Pets at Home engaged SymphonyAI (via its Symphony RetailAI category space optimization capabilities) to create dimensionally accurate planograms, define assortment rules and re-evaluate space allocation across the estate.

SymphonyAI ran category space optimization scenarios and compared them with Pets at Home’s internal analysis, producing validated, compelling results that helped prioritize products by sales and profitability. The work identified that about 25% of SKUs delivered very little sales or profit and were better suited to online or 48‑hour delivery, enabled more tailored assortments for different store sizes, improved allocation for fast‑moving items and reduced inventory pressure; organizational buy‑in took about 18 months, but SymphonyAI’s analysis provided the evidence needed to drive those space and replenishment decisions.

Pets At Home

Mark Wilkinson

Pets at Home