The number that matters, and the one that matters more
Morgan Stanley's latest read on the US pet economy carries a headline that sounds like bad news: growth has settled at around 4% a year, down from close to 9% annually across 2019 to 2025. The post-pandemic run is over and the sector has entered a slower, more mature phase.
Underneath that headline sits a second number that points the other way. Services — grooming, boarding, daycare, training, veterinary care — accounted for more than 40% of total pet spending in 2025, and Morgan Stanley expects that share to keep rising. Total US pet spending is still projected to move from roughly $200 billion in 2025 to more than $240 billion by 2030.
So the pie is growing more slowly, and the slice you sell from is getting bigger. Those are not contradictory facts, but they demand different responses, and running your business as though only the first one is true is the mistake to avoid this year.
What is actually slowing down
The pressure is coming from cost, not from affection. Persistent inflation has raised the price of essentially everything an owner buys — food, veterinary visits, grooming, accessories — and owners are responding by getting more deliberate rather than by getting out. Younger owners in particular are making sharper choices about what stays in the budget.
The category holding up best is healthcare: prescriptions, diagnostics, routine care. Owners are protecting the spending they read as necessary and trimming the spending they read as discretionary. That framing is the whole game for a grooming business, because grooming can credibly sit on either side of that line depending entirely on how you present it.
Where grooming sits on the essential/discretionary line
A "summer haircut" is discretionary. A skin and coat maintenance programme that catches matting before it becomes a painful clip-off, spots lumps and ear infections early, and keeps a senior dog comfortable is not. Same appointment, same invoice, radically different survival odds in a household that is tightening up.
Practical ways to move your service across that line:
Report on health, not just appearance. A short written note after each visit — matting locations, skin condition, ear and nail status, anything worth mentioning to a vet — turns the appointment into a record. Owners keep records. They cancel haircuts.
Name the interval and the reason. "Every six weeks for a doodle coat, because week eight is when the mats reach the skin" is a clinical statement. "Book again when you like" is an invitation to stretch to twelve weeks and then to stop.
Bundle the boring, high-value items. Nail trims, ear cleaning, anal glands where appropriate, teeth brushing. These are the things owners genuinely cannot do well at home and the things that make skipping an appointment feel consequential.
What to do about slowing top-line growth
Slower category growth means fewer new customers arriving on their own. Growth now has to come from share and from depth, which puts three levers in front of you.
Retention beats acquisition, and it is measurable. If you are not tracking rebooking rate at the desk — the percentage of clients who leave with the next appointment already in the diary — start this week. It is the single most predictive number in a services business, and it is entirely within your control.
Price with a spine, and explain it. Costs have risen for you the same way they have risen for your clients. The salons in trouble are not the ones that raised prices; they are the ones that raised prices without changing anything the client can see. Pair every increase with something visible: a better dryer, a quieter room, a longer appointment slot, a written health note.
Watch the trade-down, do not fear it. Some clients will stretch intervals. Give them a legitimate cheaper option — a bath-and-tidy between full grooms, a maintenance de-shed — rather than letting them invent one by simply not coming. A client on a smaller service is a client you still have.
The strategic read
A maturing market is a market where operating discipline starts to matter more than demand. For most of the last six years, a competent grooming business grew because the category grew. That tailwind has weakened, and the businesses that pull ahead over the next three years will be the ones with clean rebooking numbers, a defensible position on price, and a service story that reads as health rather than as luxury.
The share shift toward services is genuinely good news, but it is not automatic revenue. It is a signal that owners are willing to pay professionals for outcomes they cannot produce themselves. Grooming qualifies — as long as you are selling the outcome and not the haircut.