June 13, 2006
Home parties go to the dogs
Pupperware events target people whose pets are part of the family
It's a Wednesday evening at Paw's Palace grooming spa in Silverton, and about 16dogs - shelties, standard poodles and golden retrievers - bark, sniff around and play with brightly colored toys scattered on the floor while their owners talk and laugh over the din.
But the owners haven't brought their pets to get primped. They've brought them here so they can browse, try out and maybe buy dozens of pet products, from $5 Ulti-Mutt candy bars to $11-$15 Aromutt Therapy shampoos, spritzers and candles, to $165 pet strollers.
Paw's Palace was the site of a recent Pupperware party, a new twist on a Tupperware party that combines two of Americans' favorite pastimes - shopping at in-home parties and spoiling their pets.
Home parties generate $30 billion in annual sales, according to the Direct Selling Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group. And people spent $36.3 billion on their pets in 2005, according to the Greenwich, Conn.-based American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.
"I think it's great. There are so many times you go to a feed store or a pet supply store and you don't get to try things out," 51-year-old Candace Gates of Blanchester says of the Pupperware party.
Gates decides to buy a $12 bottle of orange mango-scented foaming cleanser - the most popular product from Shure Pets, which puts on Pupperware parties - for her dog, Roxie.
"She has a tendency to roll in everything nasty she can find," she says.
An entrepreneur named Andrew Shure founded Shure Pets in 2002 after seeing that people were treating their pets as family members and spending money on them accordingly.
It's important for people with a passion for pets to sell directly to others, Shure says. His company boasts more than 1,200 consultants around the country, a number that's more than doubled since last year, he says.
Shure Pets has about 10 consultants in Greater Cincinnati, including Gale Wulker, a 46-year-old Blue Ash resident who put on the Pupperware party at Paw's Palace.
Wulker became Shure Pets' 312th consultant in 2004. A stay-at-home mom to two boys and a Boy Scouts volunteer, she did an Internet search for pets while she was looking for a part-time job. That's when Shure Pets popped up.
"I'm not into jewelry or cosmetics or cookware, but pets (are) something I can do," she says.
Wulker sells Shure Pets products in homes and at events about two days each week. About half of the customers who attended the party at Paw's Palace ended up ordering products, she says.
Marilyn Newman, 54, of Silverton buys something at every Pupperware party she attends for her bichon frise, Susi, and no longer buys from pet stores.
She uses Shure Pets' emu oil spray and shampoo that she says leaves Susi's fur free of mats. She's also bought spritzers, a reflective leash and collar and a paw mitt, and she often sports a sweat shirt with a bichon frise embroidered on the front.
