Worth a staggering $1.2 billion, the Chinese pet-care market shouldn´t be underestimated.  SmellMe (闻闻窝), a Chinese startup saw the potential and created a social network solely for China´s pampered pets targeting some of the estimated 33 million households in the country holding a cat or dog.  With already 500.000 registered users SmellMe is more than just a gimmick and includes everything from setting up a profile for your pet to an overview of user-rated pet-care places like pet hotels and grooming salons. Even snapping pictures or short videos in order to hook your pet up with someone else’s is possible!
However, this is nothiing new and there are already a couple of other social networks for your pets like “Klooff” (https://www.klooff.com/) with a user base of around 1.5 million in the US or “my social petwork” (https://mysocialpetwork.co.uk/) in the UK.
For some this may sound like a joke but this is already a reality and if you walk along the streets of any city in China, you will see a lot of pampered dogs or even cats. People take good care of their pets and treat them very well, therefore this app could be a new dimension for the pet market in China. We will see what the future brings and if the business model has a longer lasting prospect of success, but for now we can say that 500.00 registered users is quite impressive for a pampered pets social network which launched in 2014.
The website can be found here: https://smellme.cn/
The website is currently in Chinese only so if you can´t read Chinese the page might not be for you! Still, it is definitely worth having quick look at and put your browser’s translator to the test!
Sources:
https://www.techinasia.com/china-social-network-for-pets-smellme/
https://www.cnet.com/news/klooff-like-instagram-for-your-pets/
https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/12/my-social-petwork
Written by Kevin Dean Kowalczyk | Intern at InternChina