On this episode, I welcome back to the podcast Scott Arsenault CEO at Ren's Pets, to catch up with this fast-moving pet retailer taking its philosophy of "your pet's best life" into increasingly more Canadian communities every day.
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. I'm producer & host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is produced in conjunction with the Retail Council of Canada.
On this episode, I welcome back to the podcast Scott Arsenault CEO at Ren's Pets. We catch up on this fast-moving pet retailer and how Scott and the team are bringing their philosophy of "your pet's best life" into more Canadian communities every day.
Scott talks about what makes Ren's different in a crowded category, their elements of sustainable competitive advantage, key trends in the category for the future, and the importance of team members and leadership lessons learned over his long tenure at Rens this 40-year award-winning overnight success, now with 50 stores plus and growing
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.
Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row.
Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail. He produces and co-hosts Remarkable Retail with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world.
Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers.
Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. My name is Michael LeBlanc, and I am your host. This podcast is produced in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. On this episode, I welcome back to the podcast, Scott Arsenault, CEO of Ren's Pets. We catch up on this fast-moving pet retailer and how Scott and the team are bringing their philosophy of your pets best life into more Canadian communities every day, Scott talks about what makes Ren's different in a crowded category, their elements of sustainable competitive advantage, key trends in the category for the future, and the importance of team members. Leadership lessons Learned over his long tenure at Ren's Pets. This 40 Year award winning overnight success now with 50 stores plus and growing. Scott, welcome back to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing?
Scott Arsenault 00:48
Fantastic and always great to talk to an advocate like yourself, Michael.
Michael LeBlanc 00:53
Well, thank you, sir. My doggo, Ziggy, continues to enjoy products from, from Ren's and he's healthy and happy and you know, just a pile of, pile of fun and a pile of energy. Now, you've been on the podcast before as I, as I mentioned, but it's been a while, I was checking the date. I mean, it was early, even pre-pandemic. So, it's long overdue, time to catch up. A lot has happened in your business life. So, let's start the beginning, for those who maybe missed the first episode, or you know a little bit about you but want to know more. Who are you, what's your background and what do you do for a living.
Scott Arsenault 01:27
So, I've had three coffees today, be forewarned you get me going, Michael, and I love talking about Ren's Pets. You know, that's been pretty exciting, but I'm in my 12th year, if you can believe it here, I know you live in Oakville, we've been around for 48 years, that was our first location in the city, where and we're soon to open up a second store in Oakville, before I get to that I'll just go back in time, three stores, Ren was around, he's still around, he's gonna help us do a ribbon cutting. He's a patriarch. He's moved out of the business, but we still, you know, have that foundational entrepreneurial ship that he started over 48 years ago with his wife, Sharon, his son, Colin, took over. I worked for Colin from three to 10 stores, we were sold to private equity, around 36 stores and here today we're going to be at 50 stores, 7 stores by the end of the year with our new family the Legault family out of Quebec. So, it's been a lot of rapid expansion, but you know, people say every overnight success takes about 40 years and that's true for Ren's because in the last eight years, we've really seen some changes and growth.
Michael LeBlanc 02:29
Yeah, you've really, you've really nailed it in terms of accelerating the business and congratulations on finding the right partners never, never easy now about you, like, did you always wanted to be in retail, like sometimes it's described as the accidental career, how did you find your way into Ren's and talk a little bit about that?
Scott Arsenault 02:45
You know, what I had my own marketing company, I have a teaching degree and I was around in the lay days and, and there was no jobs and I just went into kind of the business world and navigated my way through and got into marketing and that's how I found Ren's, I helped them open store number three and market it and Colin, who was Ren's son, at the time said I like building and, and I'd love to have somebody in operation. So I literally sat in the same office that I'm sitting in for six months, I lived in it, listen to every word, that he had been in the business since he was 16 years old and they've grown it dramatically and built a distribution center in Guelph and had a passion for real estate in the pet industry as well, and was really a leader and he just said, I want to kind of grow the business from, you know, a real estate perspective footprint, I'd love you to do the sales and operation and that's where I started graduated to President and here I am CEO now.
Scott Arsenault 02:57
Let's talk about Ren's Pets. So you've, you've talked about already with a number of stores, you've got batalla if somebody's maybe doesn't have a pet, maybe they're not so familiar with your organization's scope scale. You know, what makes you different and remarkable as a retailer in a pretty crowded category?
Scott Arsenault 03:53
For sure. So, Ren's Pets is here for your pet's best life and that's the guiding principle, the Northstar for us is you know, every day that anybody that works in this company can ask themselves and you know, is this for somebody's Pets Best Life and it could be somebody that's in shipping, logistics if the product doesn't get there. What we really feel as important for you know, your pets best life is your diet and as you know, I know you feed a premium food, you feed a great food and you know you're a great pet parent, and you know how important that is, as any family member, you know, we all we're all looking at our caloric intake and what makes up, so for pets it's, it's super important and that's where the fun all begins.
Scott Arsenault 04:30
We can sell the treats and toys and we are a category killer in that, but we want to make sure that we have the diet and we're uber focused on dog and cat. So that's really kind of where it kind of resonates for us as we've decided to you know, kind of draw that line in the sand dog and cat. We want to make sure that we have premium diets affordably priced, so that the pet can have their best life and, and when you look at our stores, you know they're anywhere from 7 to 10,000 square feet. So, we're a midsize retailer but when you put us In the scope of some of the other bigger boxes and just focusing on dog and cat were actually much bigger in the category and then when you put the assortment, we have freemium. You see how we're a leader in, kind of, that area.
Michael LeBlanc 05:12
Now you, we'll get to all these awards that you're winning, but let's talk about ecommerce because you're no slacker, to say the least, and ecommerce talk about the evolution of that element of your business.
Scott Arsenault 05:22
Yeah, that started back at, I think, store number one back in Oakville on Trafalgar, you know, it was, it was born out of the idea for a mail order business, primarily for professionals and groomer business. So that's where the needs started, we built a new store right beside our old store and there's people that are still with us 25 years later that pick the first orders for e-commerce almost 20 years ago. So we've long been shipping across Canada and doing this. I've been here for a couple platform evolutions and, and seeing, you know, the evolution of getting pet food online and trying to navigate heavyweights and big products to consumers that are so important.
Scott Arsenault 06:00
Fast forward to just this year. You know, we won the omni-channel retailer of the year in North America for the pet industry, which is, as you say, a pretty crowded space and some big giants there that have 1000s of stores within North America, and for the number one publication to recognize Ren's, and why they did that was because we're unique. We're a category leader in many areas but one of the areas was frozen food and we saw that, that raw was really emerging as a category and as we're shipping food and diet or like people need to understand how they can get this to their home. So, we were ordering by 2:00, shipping same-day, we were in that space doing really well, but we're like, how can we get frozen there. So we implemented DoorDash so that people could get their food, if it was a raw frozen diet for the same day and we're combining all of that energy as an omni-channel retailer, we were given that designation of omni-channel retailer of the year for pet for North America.
Michael LeBlanc 06:57
Well, congratulations, it's a huge achievement for you and the team, you know, crowded space, lots of competition, lots of people doing great stuff. One thing I wanted to touch on, and you kind of alluded to it, but just for the listeners is that you don't offer in the store, grooming and other services, because you kind of made that line, I think very early on, that kill one of your clients will be the professional groomers and you didn't want to compete with them. Is that still the case, is that, am I getting that right?
Scott Arsenault 07:23
Yeah, you know what, you got a great memory. I've always said we don't compete with our partners. So, you know, we don't grow in our stores, we don't train, we don't breed or sell and we've been an advocate in communities or partnering with people like grooming. So, we have the largest assortment of grooming products for professionals in Canada. So that's one example where you can shop for the pro shop, we got all the good clippers, blade share shampoos, and stuff and we saw that as a partner, and these are the people that are sending their customers to us. So, you know, we decided not to do any of those and it's similar with some of the trainers and, you know, obviously we don't sell pets in our stores, but the trainers that the high end trainers, they send their pets to us because we're not competing with them and it's really been a winning strategy across the board for us as we grow our stores out.
Michael LeBlanc 08:12
Yeah, I thought it's a, it's a, you know, sustainable success factor for you guys. I've always thought of it that way. Like I thought it's such an original idea. There must be temptations hosting every strategic meeting, we'll get to this later should we get into, but I think I think you're pretty clear minded about it. So, let's talk about trends in the pet business. I mean, your sector had a really good run, so to speak with the pandemic, puppy years, the you know, there's some built in volume annuity, so to speak from that, that growth in in pets, dogs and cats, but you know, beyond that, what are the key trends that you're keeping an eye on to understand the, the future of the business between five and seven years out?
Scott Arsenault 08:49
Yeah, it's been a great business year over year and we were a leader in the fourth category, kind of freeze dried and frozen, which is the fastest growing category for us and we've talked about this in the past, we had a lot of, you know, freezers in our stores and they were just the Double Door ones, but it didn't give a lot of overstock space and Ren's always had a lot of products in their stores, busy stores, you could stack out, you know dry kibble food, but you can't strike out frozen or kind of that category of foods. So, we invested in walking freezers early, we tested it at five doors, our stores now all have at least 16 doors, some of 20. Going back since we invested in the 16 store to 57, we've had walk in freezers and now we've gone back and retrofitted almost 100% of, of all of our ends as a walk in freezer, barring a couple locations and that category is still a category that seems to be one that's the fastest growing and emerging and it's complex because it takes capex it takes investment for users, you know,-
Michael LeBlanc 09:49
Cold chain, you gotta cold chain, right? I mean,
Scott Arsenault 09:51
Yeah, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 09:52
The electricity goes out. You got to watch for that kind of stuff, right?
Scott Arsenault 09:55
We've gotten into some tornadoes and, or some hurricanes in the past and we had different power outages last year for sure. We learned all about generators and second source, electricity, but that's one, you know, the other two that I really think is important now, and I'm seeing it, you know, emerge and it's been emerging for a while, but it was last year, I saw it at our Superzoo in Vegas, where sourcing and ethically sourced and pet sustainability coalition, they have been talking about it for five years and sometimes you got to get this out, but that's really resonating, you're seeing more tetracycline, package recycling, leading companies like open farm, they know where every ingredient and every source is coming from. So, they can, traceability.
Scott Arsenault 10:40
These are things that really resonate with the consumer on top of Canadian products, and the fact that we're Canadian own. So, I would say those, you know, always, our brands are doing a great job making sure we're on trend, and what's happening within the kibble and the foods and toys and the treats, but from a real standpoint, I'd say that the fourth category is growing. ethically sourced, sustainability is really emerging Canadian source and the fact that we're Canadian own seems to still resonate high.
Michael LeBlanc 11:09
It's a super interesting point on one of my other podcasts, I had the opportunity to chat with Vince Breton from duBreton pork, and it's what, it's what we use exclusively in our house and what I cook with on my YouTube show, because I, you know, I just feel for the animals I want them to, you know, it's the farmers would say, have a great life and one bad day and you know, that same thinking starts to extend to what you're feeding your you, as you say, they're your other family members, right, so not ignoring, you know, where that product comes from either I think for for a full understanding. It's a great, it's a great point. I was in the US last week, week and a half ago, sorry, and one of your category counterparts was talking about insurance and getting into insurances that that is that have any interest to you or does that kind of fit in the kind of the professional area and it's just a different line of business, do you think there's any opportunity in that?
Scott Arsenault 11:58
Yeah, we you know, we've thought about that one, nobody likes to talk insurance, right, so we never wanted to be the bad news story and, and make sure, even tarnish our brand, but there's definitely secondary sources of income, but having that uber focus on who we are, you really shed that stuff quickly. You know, we've thought of things, and I don't talk on that comment, but vending machines and On Routes, right, in Canada and stuff. Would we do that.
Michael LeBlanc 12:22
That's an interesting idea.
Scott Arsenault 12:23
Yeah, and people are there with their pets and
Michael LeBlanc 12:25
Yeah, yeah.
Scott Arsenault 12:26
We could do, we could do a lot of things, right. So those things pop up and then we just say, you know, it kind of, I always go back to that good to great, you know, are we passionate about it, you know, can we be the best at it and kind of make money and so I don't think we'd be passionate about it. I don't think we could be the best at it and I'm sure we probably could make money, but at this point, some of those secondary services I feel would be outside of our lane.
Michael LeBlanc 12:26
Well, let's talk about your growth. You're talking about opening a bunch of stores this year, you're clearly expanding into the Maritimes and you've got the resources of the Legault Group behind you now, how do you translate that into sustainable market share growth, it's one thing to open a bunch of stores but it's another thing to, you know, to get market share growth out of that, you get some, you know, store over store growth, but to sustain it. How do you think about that?
Scott Arsenault 13:11
We have a recipe. I'll tell you about the recipe. Yeah. So, it's five provinces, I had to write them down. I was like, oh, okay, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, but we're adding Newfoundland this month and we're adding PEI this summer, which is a hometown favorite for me, both, my parents are from there, we're gonna have a big ribbon cutting there in the summer. So that'll be fantastic. Maybe have some, some deep sea fish and while we're out there, but we're five provinces, 57 stores, and you haven't closed the store, you know, and they've all been profitable and so I think that's unique to be able to say that as a retailer, our footprints are big and definitely expansion has been rapid, but the secret sauce has been, you know, I was heavily involved in this in the early days and we had a 30, 60, 90 day approach, what should we be doing at 90 days and 60 days and 30 and it was from a marketing and gaining customer acquisition, it was pretty rudimentary, and was set with my VP of Retail and at the time, we say who's contacting the local humane society and who's contacting and licensing programs and who's reaching out to the groomers and who's calling the mayor for ribbon cutting and all that stuff.
Scott Arsenault 14:17
So we've since really kind of professionalized that or grown up and we we've taken those same core elements, about how we open in the market, but what we want when we go into market is 2000 Ren's customers before reopen and we've never been able to deliver on that because we understand the trajectory that that puts us on and we do that through ground, we get out in the ground and we go door to door and we see our partners, whether it's breeders, groomers, you know, rescues, and we also see other local businesses around our market. So, we have somebody's feet in the streets type of thing and marketing our brand.
Scott Arsenault 14:50
We shower it digitally, and we're acquiring customers digitally for when we open so there's a lot of pent-up demand before we get into a market when we want to make sure we are connecting with humane societies to licensing programs and anybody local there to help us.
Michael LeBlanc 15:05
Yeah, yeah.
Scott Arsenault 15:05
So somebody is assigned to do that, somebody is assigned to make sure we have a digital footprint, our marketing footprint and then we have our grand opening and our 30 days after that, then we track going forward and we and we actually look at signups and rewards and customer acquisition by day average sales and, and opportunity conversion and all these things that are really unique and so there's a lot of data baked into it, but a lot of common sense as well.
Michael LeBlanc 15:30
Yeah, pretty. It's a pretty rigorous approach for sure and, and it strikes me that it ladders back to some, one element or pillar of your core strategy, right, you've got, probably, an installed base of professionals who are buying from the catalog over decades of their grooming tool. So right away, you've got a, an installed base in places that you've never physically been. It's, it's a really neat, really neat strategy. Let's talk about the people working in those stores. So right now, it's probably one of the most important issues for retailers’ coast to coast is finding and keeping the right people. So, what's your what's working for you, what's, what's the secret sauce, opening all those stores and finding the right people?
Scott Arsenault 16:07
Yeah, so people at, every company has some rocks, or some epics that they're working on, we just reviewed ours that we have a monthly review on stuff as it still current is in people's number one and first and then obviously a breakout, what you're doing towards it, but I said to my leadership team, and I have to remind them that they're a team, you know that the team that reports to me, you're my team, because a lot of times they gotta make sure that you know, and I'm like, when I do their review, I say do you belong, do you have meaning, do you have purpose, and I ask these questions and pause and wait, do you feel validated and like you have a future and they can tick the box, I think on all of those because they feel like they're here for their for the best life.
Scott Arsenault 16:42
They like working here, they belong. They got purpose, like we're growing, you know, do I give them enough recognition and feedback that we're winning awards externally, internally into the future, so they can tick the box and I said, you need to take that to your team, and your team needs to take to their team and if people have that, you know, they're validated purpose, validation and future and, and so that's one kind of baseline where you start and I think those are five core things that people really want to know, you know, you've all, we've all been in jobs where there's no future, nobody validates us. It's not purposeful, you know, we don't believe in the core values of the company or the products and, and then what comes out of that as listening to our teams and you know, a lot of people say they do this, but we have a weekly huddle and everybody's on that and that started at head office with three stores and every manager and every associate, I used to do all the hiring, but we've evolved that it's done digitally now.
Scott Arsenault 17:32
But the store manager still on there, we still have that feedback and one of the things that came out of that last year, I think we started this over 12 months ago, we started something called a turnover trip and I just gotta let that kind of marinate there because what we did with the turnover troop is we took a cut from everywhere in the company, whether it was home office, receivers, warehouse, distribution, drivers, retail associates part time, and we gathered about 12 people made sure we had an assortment from every kind of different genre in the company and we asked them, you know, to tell us and I thought for sure more wages, more benefits was going to come out of it, right.
Scott Arsenault 18:08
Like, we started to ask why people stay as opposed to why people leave, you know, so what came out of that was they didn't bang their fists first about wages, obviously, they want to be competitive, and they want to grow and that but a lot of things were communication. One thing from a retailer, you're gonna have as our home office team, they're on email, they're on these town halls, but the people that are facing the customer weren't hearing enough from head office and we felt like we were really communicating well, you know, any pitfalls, any, any any, you know, breaks in the road type of thing, or anything that was coming up, but what was happening was it wasn't getting right down to that part time or that was talking to you and your partner, your wife on the weekend about your dog's food. And that was critical.
Scott Arsenault 18:52
So, there was a misstep there and what came out of there was, hey, how about a digital townhall that we can watch at work less than 15 minutes and give us an update, tell us about the leaders, tell us who you are. So, we implemented that, more rewards, what came out for them. A lot of people didn't know about our employee feeding, their discounting, they got the benefits they got, we literally just had to sometimes spell it out and say what can we do that's more get our vendors and partners, but a lot of it was communication. They didn't know they got these deals and different things.
Scott Arsenault 19:20
So, and then finally they said we want to have a say. So, we launched our first engagement survey. And I'm happy to say that that completed our goal was to have 60% of people reply in the company, over 700 people and I think we ended up over 65%. So, we just completed that, and we committed to within four weeks dissecting that information and getting back to them with one to three points that we were going to work on based on what they said. So, I think you know, it's a tough market, whether it's home office or retail, but a lot of that just starts from making sure they have belonging and purpose listening and then acting on it.
Michael LeBlanc 19:57
Last couple of questions for you talk about the, your lessons that you've had, I mean, you've been with the firm for a while, but I love this happen, you know, between COVID acquisition twice, I guess, rapid store growth supply chain challenges, what leadership lessons have you known. I think you're articulating, some of them already the benefits of, of broad and deep communication, but anything else you've taken away from it that you would say, you know, what, these are lessons I've learned that I didn't want to share?
Scott Arsenault 20:24
Can I give you three, and shorter versions? Yeah. So,
Michael LeBlanc 20:28
Yeah.
Scott Arsenault 20:28
For sure this one, first one, keep a growth mindset, because leadership is learned, it's not innate. That's, I know, you unequivocally could say that as well. I can't believe what I didn't know and what I've learned over the last five years, and I see people that are well ahead of my career early on, because they're having the coaching that I should have had early on. So, keep reading, keep learning. If this was video, and that growth mindset, I came into my office this morning, I had radical candor on my desk, somebody put it back on with all my sticky notes, you know, I have the multiplier effect, the psychological safety that I gave to all my leadership team and talked about that.
Scott Arsenault 21:05
So, keep learning and every time, really intrigued, so that's one. People’s first decisions, that sounds easier. We have our HR team remind us, they're not the police, they're, you know, they're a vehicle for, to help us and, and we have to make, if we're making people first decisions, it gets really easy, but you can have blind spots there for sure. So, check yourself if you're making people's first decisions and then the third one, so critical for leaders, and they don't do enough, all that is sleep. You cannot be an emotional, intelligent leader without getting 7 hours of sleep consistently, you will not feel good, and not be a good partner, husband, wife, friend, you definitely won't be great at work. So, yeah, challenge yourself to get good sleep, let your brain refresh so that you can show up the best.
Michael LeBlanc 21:59
I used to manage for 10 years, I managed my daughter's elite soccer team, and I used to tell them all to sleep is the superpower like, you know, at at, for anyone, it is the most underrated. Now, I feel bad about sending you the questions at 3:30 in the morning, but that's a whole other discussion. You know, that's a whole other thing and listen, last, last question for your advice to your fellow retailers two-starts, one-stop kind of framing. Things they should start doing if they're not and one thing that maybe they should stop. It's just not working anymore, but what if you had a group of folks who do what you do for a living, what are the what are the kinds of key things you'd say you gotta start doing this and you know, what, maybe this doesn't work anymore for me, and maybe it won't work for you anymore?
Scott Arsenault 22:40
Really read, you know,
Scott Arsenault 22:43
That, that, that is amazing. Every time I really got to, you know, I'd say get to sleep, you know, that's really, really important and stop short term reactions and you know, you'll see that right now in the market and headwinds and stuff like that days don't make weeks and weeks don't make months or they do actually but my point on that is you can't have this short term vision, you know, you've got to be nimble and agile and look at the business, but, you know, I have a saying of 911. So you can't be skies falling, it can't be 911, you know, for so I think right now, it's going to be important for leaders to check what their core values are, what they said their strategy was adjust if they need to, but you don't try and turn the ship around overnight and it never adds value. Even though sometimes as a leader, it can be nervous or scared. I said it this morning. I was, like, grumpy, or was I you know, that type of thing, but then I said I was at, I'm not sure, agitated. But yeah, as leaders, you got to check that for sure. Especially in a tough environment.
Michael LeBlanc 22:43
Yep.
Michael LeBlanc 23:48
Yeah, that last point is really interesting, because it's, it's, this not a dichotomy necessarily, but between having a sense of urgency and momentum, versus, you know, freaking people out too much basically, like you've, you've, you've triangulated, three points. One is a lot of communication, two is that sense of urgency and momentum, and three, just not being so urgent, and it's so much momentum that it freaks people out, and they kind of start to get worried about that. Is that, is that, am I getting that right?
Scott Arsenault 24:16
Yeah, because sometimes you're shooting for the stars and falling in the clouds and the messaging that you can be bringing can be taken so different and, you know, I had one message this year where I set it in a huddle and there's about 100 people that are on our teams huddles across Canada now in five provinces, and I had my team give me feedback, we were adding a bunch of people, but I said maybe we weren't adding as much that and they, it was taken as we weren't adding it all and it was like no, no, we're adding it we're just maybe not adding as much as I originally planned. So, you know, and you have to be really careful because that can send people, all the messaging on that can be very different to a lot of different people and you got to make sure you know you're talking to and you want to also
Michael LeBlanc 24:59
Unintended consequences right, the unintended consequences of things, little things, like l that.
Michael LeBlanc 25:03
Where'd that come from, yeah. Interesting. Well, you've got a broad set of stakeholders. You're doing a fantastic job. And it's a real treat to, to catch up. What's next for you guys, I guess it's a funny question for you, because there's a lot next, you're opening stores, you're killing categories. You're winning awards, anything, anything you want to add to that?
Scott Arsenault 25:03
You want to make sure that you're being honest with your teams too, right, so it's like, you can't be like, hey, everything's great or everything's bad, and it's not. So, somebody might, their leadership style might be like, oh, let's keep them always and aggressive. Yeah, on the edge and that's not fair when you're doing really good and the other thing is, you know, hey, saying everything's really good maybe even in a relationship. I find so much of this personal and professional overlap and then you just hit somebody over the head and say, wow, you know, I'm not happy or this, this isn't doing good. They're like, this is the first I'm hearing this stuff right.
Scott Arsenault 25:55
We've got a big award coming up and yeah, I'll give you a little teaser on that can't say anything today, but there's, the team's done a lot of work on, on some of that stuff, but I think we're going to, we did, we opened a new distribution center and the reason we did that is we wanted to create 25,000 square feet of just e-comm. So, we're calling it an e-commerce store, it was traditionally our, our distribution center for our retail. So, we're going to double, if not triple our e-commerce footprint in terms of SKUs and size that we can handle and, and so while I think it's not new to a lot of people, it will be new to Ren's that we're going to freshen up and really expand our offering to pet parents across Canada and that's kind of exciting.
Scott Arsenault 26:40
You're going to see us continue to open the stores as we do and opening provinces. I don't think that's going to change, but I think the one big thing is our digital focus this year. We've just finished what we call open heart surgery, we took our warehouse and moved it and we approached it over eight weeks like that. I think it was a good analogy, because yeah, and, and we had our last meeting on Friday we have, we have stitched up and completed that exercise. So, we're moving forward now with expanding our e-commerce footprint and SKUs.
Michael LeBlanc 27:11
Well, congratulations on that alone because that can be at heart, a heart stopping moment or several heart stopping moments with those big systems. Well, listen, Scott, it's always a treat to talk to you. And thanks again so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast. I wish you much continued success and look forward to catching up in person real soon.
Scott Arsenault 27:28
Yeah, I think we'll see everybody, each other over the next few months and again, love listening to everything you're doing. Keep going, barbecue stuff, or just retail in general. You're a fun, fun person to listen to and learn from.
Michael LeBlanc 27:40
Thanks for tuning into this episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and follow on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically each week. And be sure to check out my other retail industry media properties Remarkable Retail podcast with Steve Dennis, and the Global E-commerce Leaders podcast. Last but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my YouTube barbecue show Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week.
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, Consumer Growth Consultant, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, Maven Media and keynote speaker. If you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Safe travels everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
stores, pets, year, people, talk, category, retail, podcast, retailer, leader, footprint, grow, open, team, company, growth, partners, distribution center, rens, professional