Episode 73: Chewy Health discusses their latest technological innovations

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Hi, friends welcome back to the Vet Blast Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by our friends from Chewy, and let me tell you 2021 has been one heck of a year. The technology that has come out of 2021 and the innovation is truly remarkable, and joining us today is Mita Malhotra, who is the vice president for Chewy Health. How are you, Mita?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: I'm very good. I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Well, I'm honored to have you here too, and I can't wait to learn from you. So to our listeners that are tuning, [here is] a little bit about our friend Mita. She is the vice president of Chewy, at Chewy Inc. She joined the company in 2018 as vice president and general manager. Mita leads Chewy's journey to deliver a world-class healthcare experience to pets, pet parents, and partners through a customer-focused approach. Mita is a seasoned leader who brings over 15 years of retail and e-commerce experience to Chewy. She has a lot of experience and a proven track record of leading teams to success and growth. Before joining Chewy, Mita was a category leader at Amazon for Amazon-owned devices and accessory businesses. Under her leadership, the category doubled year-over-year growth for Amazon devices, including the No. 1 spot or market segment shares across multiple categories. Prior to that, she spent 8 years at Dell, where she was responsible for growing Dells' PC business through traditional retail and e-commerce channels. She holds a master’s degree from UC Berkeley in geotechnical engineering and a B.E. from Punjab Engineering College. Outside the office, Mita enjoys spending time with her 6-year-old daughter and shitzu named D. Love the name. Well, let's get into it. I can't think of another person that'd be more competent in knowing about technology—with your experience that we just mentioned—other than you. So, let's talk about this technology that's been made available over time, especially this past year. So, how are you and the friends at Chewy...viewing some of these changes?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: Yeah, you know, it's an absolutely exciting time to be part of the pet health industry and we're constantly finding new ways of using technology and innovation to positively impact overall pet health and wellness. You know, Chewy is a relatively new player in this space, we've always recognized the importance of serving this part of the pet's life. That is why in 2018, we started building Chewy Health—a full ecosystem for health-related products and services to seamlessly connect customers and veterinarians in a way that only Chewy can. Our goal at Chewy Health is to make pet health care more affordable and accessible for every pet-owning household in the US, and as of today, we believe up to a third of the pet parents in the US do not even take their pets to the vet as often as they perhaps should, making it easier for pet parents to stay on top of their pets' needs and compliance. It's a very big challenge in the industry, but it's kind of the challenge that we want to take on. Over the past several years, we've all been observing customers shift to the online space, and healthcare is no different. Chewy health has played a part in connecting Chewy's 20 million customers to vets to fulfill their vet diet prescription medication needs over the past several years. And now we're seeing technology play a huge role in this relationship with solutions such as our 'Connect with a Vet' platform and Practice Hub™.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: You know, I was just talking about this with veterinarians yesterday; the fact that a third of pet parents really don't have a veterinarian. So it's important that we have individuals such as yourselves that are helping identify the wants and needs of pet parents to get the medical help that they need. So that's fantastic that you're doing that. You just happen to mention something called Practice Hub. So to listeners, I don't know if anybody knows about that...So tell me a little bit about what Practice Hub is?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: Yeah, very excited to talk about Practice Hub. It's 1 of our latest innovations and with Practice Hub, we've designed a complete e-commerce solution for veterinarians that seamlessly integrates into the practice management system. Using our proprietary app, veterinarians can select items to list, set prices, easily create, pre-approve, and manage all of their prescriptions. These vets are then listed as a seller on Chewy.com, and they earn revenue when customers place an order with them in the clinic or purchase from them on Chewy.com. The other good part about Practice Hub is that we handle all of the inventory fulfillment shipping and customer care. So the veterinarian doesn't have to worry about any of that, and Chewy takes care of all of the backend stuff.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: This is really interesting. So [how is] Practice Hub serving the veterinarian? It seems like it's helping to take away some of that stress from them.

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: Yes, it absolutely does. So it helps veterinarians in a couple of different ways. You know, a lot of veterinarians are starting to get prescriptions sent to them via online pharmacies, and this makes the process very seamless for them. It allows them also to partake in earning revenue off of those prescriptions, which we think is very innovative. Practice Hub is a platform that sits on Chewy.com. So veterinarians actually are a seller on Chewy.com. It's seamless for the clients and customers, and then they earn revenue off of not only the first purchase but subsequent autoship purchases and sales as well. So it's a very lucrative proposition for them, and with none of the hassles because Chewy will take care of all of the backends, whether it's inventory, whether it's shipping, whether it's managing reminders for prescriptions, and so forth. So a very lucrative proposition for veterinarians, both from a revenue perspective and kind of client-management and prescriptions perspective as well.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: So revenue perspective, that sounds like a win, and the stress of dealing with inventory, that sounds like another win to know that we, as veterinarians, don't have to worry too much about it. So what motivated Chewy then to create something like that?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: You know, Practice Hub is 1 of the most innovative projects we've launched within Chewy Health, especially in the way that it seamlessly connects customers to veterinarians. Chewy is a very mission-driven organization, and we believe in building very friendly experiences on top of product technology and Practice Hub allowed us to exercise our mission orientation while building an experience that doesn't really exist in the pet healthcare space today.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Yeah, I don't know that many that are out there. But I know that there are other services and competitors probably that are a similar space. So how is this different from those that are out there?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: Yeah, Practice Hub is completely different than any of the other products or services that are in the marketplace. First, our service sits directly on Chewy.com, with more than 20 million active customers who now have immediate access to buy from your veterinarian. Secondly, Chewy owns the entire customer experience. So what do I mean by that, right? So 1, we ship for free—over $49—we do not charge customers extra for life-saving meds. So like Vaseline, which is, you know, is an inexpensive proposition to ship overnight. We don't charge customers extra for that, while you know, other players in the market do. We ship fast, our products get to you within 1 to 2 days, you know, everywhere else, you probably get them you're looking at 5 to 7 days or more. It's backed by today's customer care team. So we're available for you 24/7, both for the clients and for the veterinarians. So we believe it's fairly innovative and very differentiated in the way other players exist in the marketplace. We think ours is very, very different.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Yeah, it's definitely very innovative. I know that the veterinarians that are tuning are probably saying, "Wait a minute, how, how much money am I going to be making?" or "How do I even make money off of this?" What are your thoughts on that?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: Yeah, that's a good question and one we get often. Veterinarians, [are] in full control of the margins they want to make, it's very flexible in that vets can choose the items they want to list, they're able to set their own prices and effectively, they earn revenue as customers buy from them, whether in clinic or online. The amount of money and margins [vets] are going to make is basically, directly dependent on the pricing that they set. I think one thing to mention is I'm hoping that—you the veterinarians know and the listeners know—we have one of the highest customer retention rates and one of the highest autoship rates in the industry. So what does that mean? That means that this proposition becomes even more lucrative because once we have the customers shopping at Chewy, they're likely customers for a long time. And when they're customers for a long time, and they're on autoship, you can actually make revenue, not on just the first sale, but every repeat autoship sale as well. So there are 2 things for vets: A), it's lucrative from a dollar perspective, so you earn a lot of money, and then B), obviously drives a lot of compliance in the industry, which we all know is a massive problem. So you know, again, vets are mostly in control.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Yeah, I'm shaking my head over here too because yes, compliance is such an issue. So having that autoship helps narrow that compliance gap that you're talking about there too. So walk me through then the pet parent experience. What is that like as they go through Practice Hub?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: The entire customer experience for pet parents, I would say it's very easy to use [and] it's super friendly. Pet parents have 2 options: [No. 1], they can buy in a clinic during their routine visit to the vet, or [No. 2], they can shop on Chewy.com as they normally do. When [pet parents] are shopping on Chewy, they will see an option to buy from their vet and that's what they have to do. Our orders will ship immediately as long as the prescription is preapproved, so it doesn't matter what the purchase path the customer picks are, the orders will ship basically the same day.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Absolutely incredible. You know, I think pet parents kind of want something 'as of yesterday.' So knowing that the turnaround time is very small is fantastic. Then my other component to that is how do clinics get it done? So if they're interested, how do the clinics sign up to get involved? Or, more specifically, how is Chewy enrolling the program in clinics everywhere?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: Yeah, we're inviting clinics and veterinarians to onboard on Practice Hub now. We're actively onboarding vets who are interested, so you can visit Chewy.com/practicehub. You can get more information there, you can sign up to register, and somebody from Chewy will be in touch with you.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Really quick [and] easy. You know, we're talking to our listeners and we're talking about innovation here, and this is another great example of how innovation moves the needle in the veterinary direction space. Was Chewy able to work with vets directly throughout this process?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: Yeah, you know, this is one of the things that's very, very important to us. At Chewy Health, we're committed to being a partner in pet health care with the veterinarian community. We are always working to create products and services that are beneficial to both pet parents and vets and we cannot do it without working with the vets directly. We have a team of vets that we work closely with when developing products and solutions and they served as a great resource when we were building Practice Hub. Not only did [vets] provide a practical perspective, but they also helped us test features and iterate on enhancements, which ultimately allowed us to create a platform that supports the veterinarian's needs and the clinic's needs.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: I was just thinking of innovation too. I know that I've had several of my friends who have used the telehealth services that are available. So I don't know if the listeners know that too, but Chewy does offer telehealth services. One of my friends had a golden retriever, and it was a Sunday night when her dog [started] having a seizure and she didn't know what to do. So she went on to Chewy Health and they actually helped identify an emergency service hospital within 2 miles of her practice that she didn't even know was open. So tell me a little bit more about that telehealth services and then is there more coming from [such as] Connect with a Vet?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: I love that example, Adam, and I'm happy to hear that we were able to help your friend and get them to the emergency clinic. You know, Connect with a Vet— it's a free service for autoship customers [and] we recently expanded it to all pet parents in the US on a pay-per consult basis. So that was very recent. With the service, we’re making it possible for pet parents to connect directly with licensed vets 365 days a year to receive advice on a wide array of topics, you know, ranging from behavioral, nutrition, to discuss specific health conditions or wellness conditions, and even receive referrals to their local vets or emergency clinics, as you mentioned. You know, with the recent increase in the number of pet-owning households and the added strain it’s put on vets, our goal with Connect with the Vet was for it to be a complementary service to clinics. We understand that vets are pressed for time and have a lot going on between caring for patients, managing clients [and] operating a practice. So, we want to take some of that burden off of them so they can spend time doing what they do best, which is patient care. We know we're very respectful of VCPR and while we answer everyday routine questions and educate customers, we don't diagnose or treat any medical conditions. In fact, for any issues that might require a medical diagnosis or a condition, we're referring customers back to their own vets, or sometimes, as you mentioned in emergency clinics or urgent needs. And you know, we even get customers who don't have a primary vet, and we provide them a recommendation of a few clinics around their area if they need to go in. So we're hoping that the vets utilize the service, they find benefit in this as well as we do for customers.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: I do want to stress that I think that is so important because we talked earlier that 30% of pet owners don't necessarily have a vet, and Chewy does a great job in identifying available veterinarians. This is all about collaboration and partnership and [with] adoption and pet ownership so high right now—like you're just mentioning—we need to work together. I think this is a fantastic way of finding that synergy for the greater good of the animal. So I just wanted to stress that to our listeners, again, that Connect with a Vet is a really great tool that's out there. So please make sure that our clients are taking advantage of that. I think that's great. So with that being said, I got to peel back the curtain and see, if Chewy has anything else in the pipeline? Any other innovations that Chewy is working on?

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: Yeah, Chewy and Chewy Health, we're a relatively new player in the healthcare space, and we're at the beginning of our journey and have a pretty robust roadmap of solutions and services that you will see as talk about in the future. We're excited to build stronger relationships with vets across the country. And you know, we're just getting started.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Well, I'm telling you sounds like 2022 is going to be just as robust as it was for 2021 for pet ownership. So Mita Malhotra from Chewy, thank you so much for your time and expertise and all these amazing things that Chewy health is doing for the pet parent and veterinary industry. So thank you for all you do.

Mita Malhotra, VP of Chewy Health: Thank you, Adam. It was a pleasure being here. I want to also thank the listeners; we're committed to the pet health care industry work. You know, Chewy, [and] Chewy Health has more of the same from the same company. So excited to be here and thank you for having me.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Yeah, thank you for all you do too. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. Please continue to take care of those amazing Furbabies out there. Stay safe, and we will check next week. Have a great week everyone.