Market Research (Dog Leash)

7 min readSep 18, 2019

Product Intro:

Dog leashes are a product that have existed for millenniums. There are images from ancient civilizations dating back to 4400 B.C. depicting dog being held by humans using leashes and collars. Over time the design evolved slowly and any innovation made were made solely out of need. For example dog who were used to protect their owners or fight other dogs were often made spiked collars to help them fight. Since then there have been a few significant changes, the main thing that has changed now is that modern fabrics are used for the leash and they are made with more comfortable handles. The 20th century also saw the invention of the retractable dog leash which allows owners to change the length of tape they are giving their dog. The tape in retractables and the leash itself for regular ones are typically made of woven nylon. This is by far the most common material used on dog leashes. Some leashes are made with leather or hemp instead of nylon but these are more rare. It is also common for the nylon leash to have a neoprene or leather handle for added comfort. Neoprene is more common but leather is more comfortable to hold. Retractable leashes use hard plastic to house the tape and for the handle. The target market for this product is dog owners, this a quite a large market with more than 105 million Americans owning dogs and the number is consistently rising. All dog owners need a leash for when they take their dogs on walks or runs for exercise. Depending on where these owners live they use different lengths of leashes. The more empty the area they live, the longer the leash they can have. For example people who live on a farm will use a very long leash or simply a remote collar if they have a lot of land. People who live in a city need shorter leashes so that they can have more control over their dog and keep the dog out of harms way while on their walks. Below are sketches regular (traditional) leashes and retractable leashes. Almost all leashes fall into one of these two categories.

Breakdown of features on a regular leash

Breakdown of features on a retractable leash and how they work

Visual Benchmarking:

The selection at Target was very disappointing, very few products, only three different leashes, and two of those were very similar but different brands. The regular leashes in the center going down, they just had the same one at two different lengths. Retractables were located at the bottom, difficult to notice unless you were looking for them. Overall the display looks to be designed to sell more harness and collars which feature more prominently and have more options. The location was not very good either, it was in a back corner of the store on the endcap.

Walmart had a better selection but the display was terrible. As you can see everything is crammed together making it hard to shop. Regular Leashes are located on the bottom row and retractables are two rows below eye level on the right. This placement tells me that they don’t care or want leashes to catch people’s eyes because they will likely only purchase them out of need. Collars are instead given the eye level area in the hopes people will want multiple to change up on their pets. The aisle was also difficult to find as it was located in a back corner with minimal signage.

Selection of regular leashes at PetSmart

Selection of Harness and retractables available at PetSmart

PetSmart had by far the best selection and the best display, which makes sense as they are a pet specialty retailer. Their display was a little more spread out but still crowded. This was the only place with leashes both regular and retractable at eye level. They also had many more type of leashes, like hands free, remote, and an entire wall of just retractables. PetSmart was the only one with the leash aisle being located centrally and prominently. Both the Target and Walmart section were located in the back corner of the store, away from the main aisle.

After visiting the stores, looking online, and reading online reviews, I complied a list of the best reviewed, innovative, and unique leashes I could find. I put these into the table below and summarized their key features and what reviewers had to say about them.

Breakdown of the most popular options I found online and in stores sorted by price, low to high

Miscellaneous notes: Every single one star review was for the leash not being durable enough, most of the five star reviews also had to do with durability but some did mention liking certain features of the leash so this is what I included in the reviews section. Based on my experiences in the stores and reading online reviews KONG seems to be the industry standard despite their products not having great reviews. I suspect that the durability of a leash has more to do with the dog it is being used with than the leash itself as most durability reviews were all over the board and many people do not specify the size or strength of their dogs in the review. This would explain why KONG is so popular but not so well reviewed. I hope to learn more and find out if this is true during user research. Flexi was the only brand that I saw on every online store and in every retailer.

Of the options in the table I took the most distinct ones and but them into a two by two which shows how they compare in how comfortable they are to hold for the owner and how much control they offer the owner of their dog. I had considered making durability and ease of use on the axis but I feel based on reviews these features are necessary, people will not purchase anything that isn’t easy and intuitive to use and their dog cannot break away from.

There is not much innovation in the dog leashes currently. The most innovative ones are PETKIT and Dogness, both incorporate some sort of “smart” function. PETKIT includes a tracker and a social platform with a futuristic design (though their new version looks more traditional). Dogness has a modularity feature which is innovative but there are only three things you can do with the feature add an LED, a waste dispenser, or a speaker.

Online Reviews:

The most important thing to dog owners is that the leash they purchase is durable. They do not want to risk their dog breaking free and running away. They also don’t want to be returning to the pet store every month to purchase a new leash. By far the most common complaints had to do with durability and dogs breaking away from or chewing through their leashes. In retractables they are looking for a locking mechanism that is easy to use. Any retractable leash that had a difficult to use locking mechanism was poorly reviewed and alternatively ones with good locking mechanisms were well reviewed. Comfort and control were not mentioned as often as ease of use and durability but many reviewers cited them as the differentiating factor as to why they chose a certain leash. This is why I chose these for the axis of my two by two competition table.

Trend Research:

People are spending more on their pets, especially food, people want to know what they are feeding to their dogs, traditional pet foods are out.

All natural dog food with all ingredients listed

Online retailers are slowly getting into the market but retailers remain dominant
Pet services and conveniences are becoming closer to those of humans

Key trend insights from Packaged Facts:

Pets (dogs) are replacing kids for many millennials which is driving the growth in spending on pets.
Packaging is becoming increasingly important in the pet supplies sector.
Merchandising is key in the success of new products.
Dog ownership is up 29% over the last 10 years.
Similar to many other products, owners want their pet products to be sustainable.
For leashes durability is still the a non-negotiable feature.
New owners are more likely to spend more on leashes.

New product Ideas: