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Chewy, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the pure play e-commerce business in the United States. The company provides pet food and treats, pet supplies and pet medications, and other pet-health products, as well as pet services for dogs, cats, fish, birds, small pets, horses, and reptiles through its www.chewy.com retail Website, as well as its mobile applications. It offers approximately 100,000 products from 3,000 partner brands. The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Dania Beach, Florida.
2011-2019: Founding and pre-IPO
Chewy was founded under the name "Mr. Chewy" in June 2011 by Ryan Cohen and Michael Day. The company hired former employees and executives from Amazon, PetSmart, Whole Foods Market, and Wayfair. In March 2012, the company estimated a total yearly revenue of $26 million, despite losing money in its first half year. From 2014 to 2015, sales grew from $205 million to $423 million.By 2017, the company had revenue of approximately $2 billion and 51% of online pet food sales in the US. At that time, Ryan Cohen prepared to take Chewy public as both Petco and PetSmart approached with merger offers. Petco's offer would be paid for in part using stock, whereas PetSmart offered an all-cash bid that would also allow Chewy to remain a completely separate business. Chewy was acquired by PetSmart in May 2017 for $3.35 billion, which at the time was the largest ever acquisition of an e-commerce business. PetSmart later transferred 20% of its ownership stake in Chewy to private equity firm BC Partners, which has owned PetSmart since 2014, and also spun off an additional 16.5% of Chewy to an unrestricted subsidiary in 2018.Following the acquisition, Cohen remained CEO and operated the business largely as an independent unit of PetSmart. Between 2017 and 2018, Chewy’s sales increased from $2.1 billion to $3.5 billion, with 66% of sales coming from customers signed up for automatic recurring shipments. In 2018, Chewy created Chewy Pharmacy, an online pharmacy providing pet-targeted prescription medications. Orders placed through the business are completed in coordination with a team of in-house veterinarians.
2019-present: Post-IPO
On April 29, 2019, Chewy filed an S-1 for an initial public offering, intending to trade under the ticker symbol CHWY. In its filing, Chewy reported a net loss of $268 million on total sales of $3.5 billion for its 2018 fiscal year. Chewy went public on June 14, 2019, at $22 per share. In the 2019 fiscal year, Chewy earned net sales of $4.85 billion, a 40 percent year-over-year increase on a 52-week to 52-week basis. The company saw increased demand from millions of existing and new customers as the business sustained growth throughout the economic disruption of the COVID-19 era.Chewy launched a free tele-triage service called Connect With a Vet in October 2020. In November 2020, Chewy announced that it would produce and fulfill orders of customized prescription medications, commonly referred to as compounding, for instances where commercial alternatives are absent. In 2020, it was announced that PetSmart and Chewy would be separated by private equity firm BC Partners Inc. in a recapitalization plan; the process began in early 2021. In 2020, total yearly net sales increased 47% to $7.15 billion from 2019 sales.In March 2021, Chewy reported revenue of $2.04 billion for Q4 of 2020, making it Chewy's first quarter of net profitability, and net sales of $7.15 billion for the fiscal year. In March 2022, Chewy reported net sales of $8.89 billion for the 2021 fiscal year.In December 2021, Chewy announced its expansion into medical insurance for pets. CarePlus, launched in 2022, will offer pet health insurance and wellness plans to more than 20 million Chewy customers.
Our mission is to be the most trusted and convenient online destination for pet parents (and partners) everywhere. We view pets (and pet parents) as family and are obsessed with meeting their needs and exceeding customer expectations through every interaction.
