How Joe Wykes of Jollyes aims to build a pet empire with more than 200 stores

“We typically have stores with concrete polished-floors so dog wees are welcome!" joked Jollyes chief executive Joe Wykes, who was in Yorkshire to launch the group’s Pontrefract store. “All of our store colleagues are pet owners and all of them shop with us. What sets us apart from the rest of the market is value for money and the range of products we offer alongside expert advice. That's something the grocers and discounters and the online players can never ever match.”

Jollyes, which has grown from a single store in Enfield in 1971 to more than 100 today, is on course for rapid expansion, with support from TDR Capital, which bought it last year. Yorkshire has already played a key role in Jollyes’ growth, with new stores and acquisitions in Rotherham, Harrogate, Hull, Wakefield, Barnsley, Denby Dale and York.

Mr Wykes is certainly embracing Yorkshire culture. "We had a group of liquorice singers and the mayor and 180 shoppers in our first hour of business in Pontefract,’’ said Mr Wykes, who became CEO at Jollyes in 2022 after holding senior roles at retail giants Bensons for Beds and Sleepeezee.

"We've got 110 stores and have opened around 50 shops in the last three and a half years so it's a very exciting time. Our stores stretch from Perth up in Scotland down to Plymouth in the south west of England, but there are many areas of the UK where we have no presence whatsoever.

"For example, we have no stores in Nottingham, no stores in Leicester, no stores in Birmingham; there are huge swathes of the UK where we see a lot of opportunity and potential.”

He hopes to start breathing down the neck of the market leader, Pets at Home within a few years.

"My desire is to create a store estate in excess of 200 stores across the UK, which is broadly a doubling of the current footprint, and we're trying as hard as we can and as thoughtfully as possible to bridge that gap to Pets at Home,’’ he said.

"They have 460 odd stores, they are the number one in the market, we are the number two in the market and we only have 109 stores, so the gulf between number one and number two is immense. It's my job to bridge that gap.

"Compared with Pets at Home and the independent sector we're 10 per cent cheaper,’’ he added. “That combination of price leadership and personalised expertise in store we feel is unrivalled. We are in a growth phase and we have a very supportive shareholder.”

Many stores also run community clinics offering vaccinations and other advice from trained vets.

"The community pet clinics are a point of differentiation. We are supported by a business called Eville & Jones who are based in Garforth, Leeds, who provide the vets to us and typically 90 per cent of our stores have at least one clinic a week,’’ said Mr Wykes. “In our clinics we can satisfy broadly 70 per cent of what pet owners would take their pets to vets for,’’ he added.

"We offer vaccinations micro-chipping and rudimentary checks behind the ears and claws and we are roughly 60 per cent cheaper than what the vets offer as well.”

"There are ongoing investigations from the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) into vets about the lack of transparency in pricing; one of our points of differentiation is our price leadership on vets services.”

Last year, pet owners struggling with vet bills were offered tips on how to save money by Britain’s competition watchdog as it confirmed it was pressing ahead with a full market investigation into the vets market amid concerns over practices.

The CMA said the probe will look at issues such as whether consumers are being given the information they need so they can make informed decisions, if pet owners are being impacted by limited choice and whether profits are “consistent with the levels expected in a competitive market”.

Jollyes’ turnover was £144m over the last financial year and is set to be about £165m this year. Mr Wickes said Jollyes did not anticipate making a loss this year and “we will continue to invest in our prices and our people in order to carry on with our growth path”.

Could further stores in Yorkshire be in the pipeline?

"I would love to open more stores in Yorkshire but we are absolutely 'agnostic' about the location of the new stores; we work on an opportunistic basis,’’ he said.

All major retailers are preparing to take a financial blow from measures announced in the Budget last autumn.

"We clearly have some cost pressures which have been well publicised due to increases in colleague costs linked to the Budget, both in store and in support office,’’ said Mr Wykes

"Clearly, there's no relief on business rates at the moment. As we open more stores we have to pay more rent and we employ more people.

"Pet stores do take a period of time to mature and so as we grow we are always going to have a period of lower profits but with the support of TDR we are very focused on getting to 200 stores.

"Everybody understands that there will be a suppression of profits as we go for growth."

It appears there will be no shortage of store openings for Mr Wykes to attend over the next few months.

He added: "One of my challenges is to get new stores like Pontefract trading as quickly as possible so we can become more profitable quickly. We can then fund new stores in the future to continue our quest to become the clear number two in the market.”