Founded in 2011, Chewy is an online hub where you can purchase animal supplies for your furry friend from the comfort of your home. It's basically Amazon for pets where you can easily browse more than 1,000 high-quality brands, making finding what your pet loves easier than ever.
How does Chewy work?
When you go to Chewy's website, there will be an account creation tab where you list not only your information but your pet's as well.
It's important to do this first for a couple of reasons: You can't checkout without an account, and Chewy uses this to customize your shopping experience. It will ask you a few simple questions like what is your pet's name, birthday, and breed, plus some optional questions regarding their weight, allergies, preexisting conditions, and medications. It also gives you the option to upload your pet's photo — trust me you're going to want to do this. After that, you're free to shop.
The browsing tab on Chewy is first broken down by animal type, then by subcategories like food, toys, and supplies. Other than your basic pet needs, Chewy carries preventative care and prescription medications as well. The company isn't focused on just cat and dog owners either; it offers thousands of products for every type of pet like birds, fish, horses, reptiles, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, and more. Just add your product to the cart, checkout, and wait one to two days for delivery.
Key features
Chewy provides exclusive savings to customers who enable the autoship feature. Meaning, you can create a custom recurring order for products your pet uses frequently, like food and treats. Chewy offers a 30% discount (with savings up to $20) when you set up autoship, and then 5% to 10% off recurring orders from 30 popular brands, including Zuke's, Blue Buffalo, Greenies, Wellness, and World's Best Cat Litter.
In this day and age convenience is key. Just like us humans, our pets require a lot of food and supplies to live a fur-tastic life, so you'll always know that they're taken care of. Chewy understands that their needs change throughout their life, so updating and canceling autoship orders is as simple as one click. It just asks that you make the necessary changes at least 24 hours before your scheduled order date.
In addition to the convenient shopping and shipping features, Chewy has created a handful of "Watch and Learn" video tutorials that can be found at the bottom of the homepage. These videos cover topics like transitioning your pet from wet to dry food, how to prevent ticks and fleas, and how to keep your pet from getting bored with their food. These videos were helpful for me when my dog needed medication in his older years. It left me feeling comfortable and confident that I was taking care of him the best way possible.
Customer service experience
The best aspect of Chewy is its customer service. Employees at Chewy pride themselves on how they handle their two-legged and four-legged customers. Their website states: "Our success is measured by the happiness of the people and pets we serve, not simply by the amount of pet supplies we deliver." Standing true to its mission statement, Chewy offers 24/7 live support via phone, email, or chat all year round.
It also boasts a 100% satisfaction guarantee policy on every order. Your pet doesn't love their new treats? You're not happy with the bed you ordered? No problem. Your money is returned to you, or customer service will figure out a way to fix the problem.
Besides setting the standard in customer service for order-related issues, in my experience and from what I've also heard from friends and family, Chewy truly goes above and beyond to make sure their customers feel appreciated and valued.
Remember that photo I told you to upload? Well, Chewy sometimes uses that photo to create a custom painted portrait of your pet. My coworker had an issue with his food delivery, and a week later a custom portrait of his cat was on his doorstep. While Chewy can't send everyone a custom portrait, they do use those photos to surprise their customer's pets at random, which is truly something special.
I can't stress enough how excellent the customer service team is. Many of my family members also rely on Chewy for their pet supplies. When one recently canceled their recurring order because their beloved dog crossed over the rainbow bridge, Chewy sent a fresh bouquet of flowers and a handwritten note to their house within days of the cancelation. If that doesn't show how deeply Chewy cares for all of its customers, then I don't know what does.