Today I went to the KOPET wish stands for Korean pet, is a
fair specialized for companies trading with pet products mainly dogs and cats,
it was held at the “aT Center” building in a small area compared with COEX or
KINTEX. I found there that most of the brands were imported from USA, some companies
focuses on one single brand, others with more than 2 and it was clear where
were the most well established distributors of pet brands on the fair.
The products made in Korea on the fair were mainly clothes
and accessories made of fabrics and few companies were technology based
companies like: products to track your dog with a special necklace, 2 pet dry
rooms companies and few other technology based companies. The rest of the
companies were food and most of the brands not Korean.
Other aspect was the abundance of products designed for
small dogs; maybe most people in Korea prefer to have small dogs since most
people in Seoul live in apartments. From my experience is really hard to own a
big dog here in Korea, I used to have a Rottweiler and when I went to the vet
to ask about how much it cost to sterilize a dog, they say: Rottweiler? No. And
I went to over 10 vets here in Korea, so I had to vaccine my dog myself and
handle a frustrated big Rottweiler due to no sterilization.
Anyway this is one of the things I found different from
other pet fairs, I like to learn about new business, new trends and unique
markets like the pet market in Korea. With an increasing number of pet owners and
with it more animal awareness this is an interesting market for pet companies.
With most of the products designed for small dogs, imported products (including
food) and from Korea the technology based companies they all were Koreans (but
few), KOPET was a small but crowded fair.
