About Vets Love Pets

Vets Love Pets is an Australian online pet care retailer built on a simple belief: vets are at the heart of good pet care. The brand sells the food, treatments and everyday essentials pet owners rely on with a focus on health and wellbeing rather than the transactions.

The Challenge

Vets Love Pets competes in one of the most difficult categories in ecommerce. Pet owners shop on a natural replenishment cycle, coming back every few weeks for food, treatments and essentials, yet the brand’s repeat rate sat at around 30%. Customers were buying, but they weren’t sticking around.

Then the cost-of-living crisis hit. Across Australia, pet owners were tightening budgets, and the team started hearing that some pet owners were putting off vet visits. For a brand built around vets that was more than a commercial problem. It was a signal that customers needed more support, not just another discount.

The Solution

Using Okendo Loyalty, Vets Love Pets built a program called VLP Rewards that would earn loyalty the way a good vet does: through genuine care.

A program built on the P&L
The team mapped 12 months of purchase data and modelled every loyalty tier’s revenue, benefit cost and target behavior. 

A reward that pays for the vet
Top-tier members unlock 8,000 points, worth about $80, the average cost of a vet consultation in Australia. 

Monthly pet care themes
Each month, the program spotlights a different area of pet health, such as dental care, rewarding members for building healthier habits and discovering new categories.

Fixing churn where it happens
Subscriber bonuses moved from every fifth delivery to orders two and three, where churn actually occurred, and points became visible and redeemable inside the subscription portal.

Vets Love Pets

Loyalty Landing Page

View the implementation

The Results

• Loyalty members have a 15% higher AOV than non-members
• 26% of loyalty members tried a new category during the first themed promotion
• 60% reduction in subscription churn after re-targeting bonus points to orders 2 and 3

Key Takeaways

• Differentiate on values, not discounts: A vet-visit reward gave customers a reason to stay and reflects what the brand stands for.
• Model loyalty like a business decision: A P&L on every tier turned the program into an investment leadership could confidently back.
• Put rewards where churn happens: Moving bonuses to orders two and three cut subscription churn by 60%.

“Okendo gave us the flexibility to build a program that actually reflects who we are — rewarding pet care, not just purchases, and putting bonus points exactly where they change behavior.”

Clarissa He
Head of Ecommerce, Vets Love Pets

Explore Vets Love Pets’ Loyalty Build

Listen as Clarissa He, Head of Ecommerce at Vets Love Pets, and Alex North, Senior Enterprise Account Executive at Okendo, open up their loyalty playbook — from VIP tiers that triple earn rates to an industry-first bonus for annual vet checks.