The Cat Category Just Quietly Became a Goldmine - And Most Stores Aren't Ready
Pet store owners have spent the last decade treating dog products as the headline act. Dogs drove premium innovation. Dogs drove subscription growth. Dogs drove the content. Cats? Cats were the reliable but unglamorous back catalogue.
That's changing - fast. And if your ecommerce store isn't already repositioning around the functional cat category, you're leaving serious money on the table.
The Numbers That Should Wake You Up
According to Circana data shared by industry analyst group The Underbite, cat treats have grown 11.4% while cat supplements have surged 27.9% to $53 million. These aren't rounding errors. This is a category rewriting its own rules.
What's driving it? At Global Pet Expo, the newest wave of cat products centred around four distinct themes: functionality, hydration, high protein, and innovative feeding formats. Lickable treats. Broth toppers. Supplement-infused gels. Products designed not just to nourish - but to delight.
And here's the thing that makes this genuinely exciting for ecommerce: these aren't commodities. They're experience products. They carry higher margins, generate stronger loyalty, and create far more opportunity for intelligent cross-selling than a bag of dry kibble ever will.
Why Most Pet Stores Will Miss This Opportunity
The problem isn't product availability. Most decent pet ecommerce stores already carry some version of functional cat treats or hydration supplements. The problem is discoverability and context.
A shopper landing on your store looking for "something to help my cat drink more water" has no idea that lickable treats, broth toppers, and water fountains all solve their problem in different ways. Without guidance, they'll scan a category page, get overwhelmed, and leave.
97 out of every 100 visitors leave without buying - and in a discovery-driven category like functional cat products, that number probably skews even higher. Shoppers don't know what they don't know. They need someone to connect the dots.
This is where stores relying on static category pages and basic filters are fundamentally mismatched with how modern pet parents actually shop.
Functional Products Demand Smarter Selling
The complexity is the opportunity
A bag of standard cat food sells itself. A functional hydration supplement does not. It requires explanation - what's in it, why it matters, which cats it's best suited for, how it fits into a daily routine, what to pair it with.
That complexity is actually your advantage, if you can deliver that context at the right moment. Stores that can guide a shopper from "I'm worried my cat isn't drinking enough" to a curated selection of complementary hydration products - broth topper, lickable treat, and a ceramic fountain - will close the sale and increase average order value simultaneously.
This is exactly where AI product recommendations stop being a nice-to-have and start being a core revenue tool. A well-implemented AI shopping assistant for ecommerce doesn't just surface products - it understands intent, asks clarifying questions, and builds a personalised solution.
The feeding experience shift changes everything
What's emerging in the cat category isn't purely nutritional - it's relational. Cat parents are buying lickable treats not just for protein or hydration, but because it's become a bonding ritual. That emotional layer is important context for how you sell.
When a shopper explains their situation to an AI assistant - "my cat is picky, won't drink from a bowl, and I want to add more protein to her diet" - that assistant can recommend a hydration gel, a high-protein lickable treat, and a flowing water fountain as a complete package. That's a personalized shopping experience AI is uniquely equipped to deliver, and it's a conversation no static product grid can have.
Small Stores Have a Real Advantage Here
This is one category where independent pet ecommerce stores can genuinely outmanoeuvre the big players. Amazon's product pages don't explain why a salmon broth topper pairs well with a particular dental treat for older cats. Chewy's category navigation doesn't ask a shopper about their cat's hydration habits before making a recommendation.
You can. And with the right tools, you can do it automatically - at scale, for every visitor, 24 hours a day.
The cat food category's growth is already reshaping how smart stores think about AI product recommendations - and functional supplements and treats are accelerating that shift even further.
The stores investing in ecommerce conversion optimization around this category right now - building smarter recommendation flows, training their AI on the nuances of cat hydration and functionality - will own this space before their competitors realise what's happened.
What LISA Does Differently in Discovery-Led Categories
LISA is an AI shopping assistant built for exactly this kind of selling challenge. Rather than waiting for shoppers to find products through search or browse, LISA opens a conversation - understanding what the cat owner actually needs, what problem they're trying to solve, and what their cat's specific situation looks like.
The result is automated product recommendations that feel genuinely useful rather than algorithmically random. A shopper mentioning hydration concerns gets hydration-relevant products. A shopper looking for bonding experiences gets the lickable treats and toppers that deliver that. Every recommendation is contextual, not coincidental.
For pet stores stocking functional cat products, this isn't just about conversion rates - though those improve significantly. It's about building the kind of trust that turns a first-time buyer into a repeat customer who comes back every month because your store actually understood what they needed.
Personalization is already transforming how pet food subscriptions work - and the same logic applies powerfully to high-involvement categories like functional cat treats and supplements.
The Window Is Open - But Not Forever
Cat supplement growth at 27.9% year-on-year is the kind of signal that attracts big investment quickly. The stores that establish strong positioning, customer trust, and smart discovery experiences in this category now will be far harder to displace once the larger players start paying attention.
The functional cat category is early-stage, high-growth, and deeply suited to conversational selling. That combination doesn't come along often.
The question isn't whether AI shopping tools are worth it for your pet store. The question is whether you want to be the store that figured this out first - or the one catching up later.
This article was inspired by Pet Food Industry.
Ready to turn cat category growth into real revenue? LISA helps ecommerce stores guide shoppers to the right products through intelligent, conversational recommendations - no hard sell required. Try LISA free and see what smarter product discovery does for your store.