Performance Growth
Niche Pet Brand Success Stories: How Pet Honesty and Native Pet Captured the Eco-Conscious Pet Owner on Amazon
The pet health market is a battlefield. Established names like Purina and Pedigree control huge shelf space, dominate advertising space, and flood online marketplaces with volume. For emerging brands, matching their reach is unrealistic. However, matching their relevance is possible, and two challenger brands have faced it: Pet Honesty and Native Pet. They knew that trying to fight legacy brands using similar formulas wouldn’t work. Instead, they focused on a rising audience of sustainability-conscious, health-driven pet owners. Such strategies are more important than ever with opportunities like Amazon Pet Day creating moments of concentrated customer attention.
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Show me howIn this post, we break down how Pet Honesty and Native Pet redefined the rules, and how new pet brands can follow their lead to win online today.
Pet Honesty: Scaling with Trust, Quality, and Purpose
Origin Story: Frustration Turned Into Opportunity
In 2018, Ben and Camille Arneberg set out to fix a problem they saw firsthand. Despite the booming pet industry, most treats and supplements were full of unhealthy fillers and low-quality ingredients.
With a track record of building fast-scaling Amazon-native brands like Willow & Everett and CubeFit, they recognized the shift happening in consumer behavior. Pet owners, especially millennials, were demanding better choices for their animals, just like they were for themselves. Thus, Pet Honesty was launched to meet that demand: clean, functional supplements made for pets who deserved better.
Strategic Moves: Customer-Centric at Every Stage
Pet Honesty’s success was the result of deliberate moves built around product quality and customer loyalty. They launched directly on Amazon with health-specific products, building reviews, repeat buyers, and brand trust from day one.
- Amazon-First Launch: They targeted critical health concerns early with products like glucosamine-rich hip and joint chews and probiotics designed for digestion.
- Service Standards: Pet Honesty set themselves apart by offering personal customer support, aiming to respond to questions within an hour, a rare commitment in the Amazon ecosystem.
- Community Building: They created a brand personality around “Chief,” their company dog mascot, building emotional connections that made customer engagement feel real, not transactional.
- Cause Alignment: The brand consistently donated a portion of profits to dog rescue organizations and PTSD service dog programs, embedding real purpose into their business model.
Every decision reflected a deeper understanding of who their customer was and what they valued beyond the product itself.
Sustainability Commitment: Healthier Pets, Healthier Practices
Pet Honesty never positioned itself as a hardcore sustainability brand. But its operational choices naturally appealed to conscious pet owners.
- Ingredient Integrity: Focus on filler-free, natural formulations that avoid the cheap chemical additives plaguing the category.
- Ethical Production: Products are manufactured in FDA-registered facilities under strict quality controls, ensuring consistency and safety.
- Community Impact: Ongoing support for animal welfare initiatives reinforced their image as a brand that genuinely cared about the larger ecosystem around pet ownership.
The brand’s credibility in wellness naturally extended into sustainability without the need for exaggerated green claims.
Growth Proof: Scaling the Right Way
Pet Honesty’s early traction proved the model worked.
- Within their first year, they reached seven-figure revenue on Amazon, driven by consumer demand for cleaner, filler-free supplements.
- The brand then expanded offline, securing placement in over 9,000 retail locations including Target, Petco, and PetSmart.
- Throughout this rapid growth, Pet Honesty maintained its credibility online, accumulating over 300,000 verified Amazon reviews that reinforced the brand’s reputation for product efficacy, transparency, and customer trust.
@pet_honesty We love hearing how Pet Honesty has made a difference in your pets’ lives! ✨🐾 Your reviews warm our hearts and inspire us every day. 🐶 Thank you for trusting us to support your fur friends! 💖 #pethonesty #doghealth #dogparents #dogmom #petsupplements
Instead of diluting their mission as they scaled, Pet Honesty sharpened it. Every step of their growth reinforced their original promise: to deliver better health solutions for pets and peace of mind for the owners who love them. The brand continues to expand into new categories, such as feline wellness.
If you want to learn how to strategically balance profit and scale during major events like Prime Day, check out our full guide here.
Native Pet: Clean Label Innovation and Authentic Sustainability
Origin Story: Built from a Real Need, Not a Trend
In 2017, Dan Schaefer and Pat Barron faced a problem most pet owners know too well. After adopting Louie, a Labrador retriever with a laundry list of health problems, Dan found that even “natural” pet supplements were packed with fillers and low-quality ingredients. Instead of settling, they built something better. Native Pet started with a clear goal: create clean, simple supplements backed by science, not slogans.
Strategic Moves: Innovation That Focuses on the Buyer
Native Pet didn’t copy what was already on the shelf. They rethought the product itself.
- Product Innovation: Yak Chews, Pumpkin Fiber, and Bone Broth powders set the foundation. All products use minimal ingredients, with no fillers or artificial additives.
- Science-Driven Development: Every formula was created in partnership with veterinary nutritionists and food scientists, ensuring real health benefits rather than marketing fluff.
- Amazon SEO Focus: Native Pet made sure to own the right keywords early, targeting search terms like “organic pet supplements” and “eco-friendly dog health.” They didn’t try to win everything. They won the customers that mattered most.
Their playbook was simple: meet conscious consumers where they already are, and give them a real reason to stay loyal.
For more real-world examples of brands using science-backed marketing strategies to scale fast online, explore our deep dive into challenger supplement brands Ritual and Seed here.
Sustainability Commitment: Action, Not Just Messaging
Sustainability at Native Pet is baked into their products and operations.
- Production Practices: They chose air-drying methods over energy-intensive processes to preserve ingredient quality and reduce environmental impact.
- Domestic Manufacturing: Producing in the U.S. helps lower emissions, improves supply chain transparency, and supports local economies.
- Ingredient Integrity: Fewer ingredients mean fewer resources consumed and less waste, reinforcing their clean-label promise at every step.
Nothing is treated as a side initiative. Environmental responsibility is core to how they operate, not just how they market.
@nativepet what makes The Daily different? 🤔 #dogsupplements
Growth Proof: Strong Numbers, Stronger Principles
Native Pet’s approach worked.
- The brand has consistently more than doubled its revenue year-over-year since launch, driven by customer loyalty to their clean-label approach.
- As they scaled beyond Amazon, they also expanded into Chewy, Target, and PetSmart, maintaining their product integrity and refusing to compromise on ingredient quality.
- They partnered with Mars Petcare’s Companion Fund, selecting an investor that shared their commitment to clean ingredients and responsible growth rather than pushing them toward shortcuts or mass-market compromises.
Through it all, they stayed true to what made them different: better ingredients, smarter products, and real transparency.
Want a deeper look at the Amazon strategies that helped us triple sales for a premium pet brand? Read our full breakdown here.
Pet Honesty and Native Pet products have earned thousands of positive reviews on Amazon, with customer ratings consistently above 4 stars, demonstrating strong trust and product performance in the competitive pet health market.
Key Takeaways for Pet Brands Looking to Scale
1. Broad appeal dilutes brand power. Niche focus builds it.
Pet Honesty and Native Pet did not try to win over every pet owner. They focused on health-conscious, eco-aware consumers who were underserved by legacy brands. Targeting a specific buyer with specific needs allowed them to scale faster and build deeper loyalty.
2. Product integrity and brand values must align.
A growing number of pet owners are choosing brands that match their lifestyle and ethics. Clean labels, transparent sourcing, and community impact are no longer optional for growth. They are requirements for trust.
3. Amazon and Walmart are not just places to sell. They are platforms to build lasting brand equity.
Both Pet Honesty and Native Pet treated Amazon as a brand development channel, not just a sales engine. Reviews, content, and SEO strategy were used to build trust at scale, turning one-time buyers into long-term advocates.
4. Winning online today means winning the right customer, not every customer.
The brands that scale are the ones that know exactly who they are speaking to, what that audience values, and how to deliver it without compromise. Trying to appeal to everyone slows momentum and weakens positioning.
Ready to Build a Brand That Wins on Amazon?
If you are serious about scaling your pet brand, it starts with owning the right niche.
Our free Amazon Brand Audit will show you exactly where you stand—and what steps you can take to capture the sustainability-conscious, health-driven customers reshaping the market.
We will analyze your current presence, pinpoint missed opportunities, and deliver a custom action plan built to grow sales and brand equity across Amazon, Walmart, and DTC channels.
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