About

eTailPet was founded by a former independent pet retailer and an independent pet distributor to empower the independent pet community in the digital age!

Berenice Giannini and her husband Marco began a small chain of brick & mortar stores in Southern California. The year was 2014, right smack in the middle of the retail revolution. Very quickly it became evident that if their newly formed chain of stores was going to succeed (or, survive) their stores would need to have an online presence. Not an online presence where they would serve pet parents all over the country, but an online presence where they could serve the community and neighborhoods around their stores. They wanted to be able to place Facebook ads and have a ‘Shop Now’ button. They wanted their Google ads to be actionable, not just informative.

With a chain of ten stores, an off-the-shelf option for shop online/pickup in-store was not available. Berenice, with a data and programming background, embarked on the project of creating custom software to ensure they had exactly what they wanted for their young chain of stores. She built an enterprise system with a smart order algorithm for inventory management and POS integrated with their eCommerce site. Their bespoke POS/eCommerce software has been live since 2017 and has helped increase sales both in-store AND online!

The ability to serve pet parents on a personal and digital level is something the pet industry needs. Berenice knew that independent pet inventory needed to be digitized by making pet products available online to the communities surrounding our pet stores. Passionate about this subject, she decided to splinter off and start a company to help independent retailers across the country go online.

In her discussions about the project she crossed paths with Michael Baker of Pet Food Experts, a fourth-generation family-owned and operated independent pet distributor, whose motto is “When you win, we win!”. Michael, in parallel, had been wondering how to bring his independent retail customers to a more competitive and defensible position in the ever-evolving retail environment. His vision clicked with Berenice’s and they partnered up in this joint venture, Giannini bringing the tech and Baker a lifetime of retailer and vendor relationships. Together, they formed eTailPet in March 2018.