It’s been an exciting year for Sure Petcare

19th December 2018

We’ve had an exciting, eventful year here at Sure Petcare, so we thought we’d take a look back at 2018’s highlights.

10^th Anniversary

2018 marked ten years since the launch of our first product, the SureFlap Microchip Cat Door. For a decade we have been helping pets and their owners to keep intruder animals out of homes around the world. Ten years on, we now offer a range of cat doors, bowls and monitoring devices, including our popular internet connected pet doors.

Product launches

This year we launched the world’s most advanced cat door ever; the SureFlap Microchip Cat Door Connect. This product is quite a step up from our first cat door ten years ago. It follows in the footsteps of the SureFlap Microchip Pet Door Connect, which launched in the UK and Europe last year and in the US, Australia and New Zealand at the start of this year. 

The Microchip Cat Door Connect is app-controlled, allowing cat owners to see when their pet enters or leaves the house and lock and unlock the cat door from anywhere. Graphs of a cat’s activity give pet owners the chance to notice any changes in behaviour which could spell illness or distress. The Microchip Cat Door Connect has been our most successful product launch to date with sales outstripping our expectations.

Later in the year we launched Animo, our first product solely for dogs. Animo is an activity and behaviour monitor which tracks a dog’s activity, enables activity goals to be set and alerts owners to changes in sleep quality, barking, scratching and shaking behaviours.

Award wins

This year we have won an impressive seven awards, which demonstrates how much we strive for perfection. The awards are:

• Pet Age - Reader's Choice Award for the Microchip Pet Door Connect
• NewVoiceMedia’s CONVO Awards - Customer Experience Excellence Award
• Pet Industry Federation – Product Innovation Award for the Microchip Cat Door Connect
• Pet Quip - Pet Product Innovation of the Year (Health/Technical) Gold winner for the Microchip Cat Door Connect and the Microchip Pet Door Connect
• International Cat Care – Cat Friendly Award for the Microchip Pet Door Connect
• Lux Awards - Best Smart Pet Technology Provider 2018 - United Kingdom
• Lux Awards – Best Pet Security Product for the Microchip Cat Door

Social media

With over 60,000 Facebook fans and 12,000 Instagram followers, we find that our social media channels continue to be one of the best ways for us to connect with existing and potential customers.

Events

This year we have attended a number of trade and consumer events. In May, we had a stand at Interzoo 2018, where we introduced our connected products to pet retailers from around the world. We also attended a number of cat and dog consumer shows in Australia and New Zealand.

Next year

In January we will be attending CES, the world’s largest consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. With multiple connected products under our belt, we felt it was the right time to attend such an event. At the show, we will be introducing our SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder Connect, due to launch in the first quarter of 2019. At a time when many pet owners are conscious of their pet’s weight, the Microchip Pet Feeder Connect will allow accurate portioning using integrated scales and the product will give an insight into how much a cat eats and how often they eat. All this can be seen in the Sure Petcare app, the same app supported by the Microchip Cat Door Connect and the Microchip Pet Door Connect, meaning that multiple products can be operated using one app. Along with Animo, these products form the basis of our Connected Product Ecosystem; a suite of products which can be used together to give pet owners a greater understanding of their pet’s behaviour, encouraging proactive pet care.