Is Petland a scam?

Introduction

If you know pet stores, you know Petland. Petland is a pet franchise company with approximately 240 full service retail centers throughout the US and several other countries. It primarily sells puppies but has a handful of birds, ferrets, and small rodents at the locations I’ve been to. Animal rights groups have pretty consistently gone after this company. Today, we’ll be taking a look into the background of this company (owners, executives, etc.), information about their operations, and conclusion on whether this company is a scam.

Company Background

First, this company is a franchise which generally means there’s one company that owns the brand and several of the locations and allows other operators to purchase the right to use the name, brand, marketing, etc. in exchange for a percentage of revenues with agreements in place to maintain certain quality and operational standards and possibly some shared services.

You can read the company’s history here. There’s not a lot of information in the company’s history about its actual size. They did originate from Ohio in the 1960s with various iterations of leadership expansions and reorganizations. The original corporate filing to incorporate the parent company for Petland you can find here. The original owner and the guy who appears to still own the company is Edward Kunzelman, a pet hobbyist and entrepreneur.

There does not appear to be any solid/up to date information on the annual revenues of the company, Edward Kunzelman’s net worth, or much else that’s relevant. Some internet resources list the company revenues at approximately $45 million but there’s no way to verify that as it’s a private company.

Key Complaints

In looking at this franchise I’ll be evaluating only the franchisor company and the Petland Arkansas locations. Based on reviewing the BBB website, which you can visit here, the complaints hinge on the puppy price not being clearly listed or provided when asked, being charged between $7,000 and $13,000 for one puppy which was put on various third party financing options that were not clearly disclosed to them. The majority of dogs Petland sells are breeds that you can get for $2,000 or less from a top tier breeder, so the exorbitant prices do point towards scam even without considering the massive interest charges that are likely given the financing options offered. This is justified by the company through many warranties against physical and breeding defects, genetic conditions, etc., but in practice people don’t often don’t make claims against these types of policies. They either don’t know what all they signed up for, it’s too much trouble, or they try to file a claim and get declined due to how restrictive the policies are in practice.

Is Petland a scam?

I want to say it is a scam but it’s not. This is a legit business. They have infrastructure, and in general they have higher animal welfare standards than equivalent franchises. What I don’t like are the prices which are easily 5 times the amount of a private, quality breeder. The aggressive sales tactics, lack of transparency on pricing, and questionable financing companies that work with them don’t help their case.

To see our review of gingermalinois.com, click here.