Pet Place announced it has secured a £1m Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) loan from Lloyds Bank in efforts to support its growth and presence.
It comes as the Welsh pet supplies retailer said it has expanded its click + collect service after online orders increased by 600%.
The group was consequently forced to modify its operating model in the first few weeks of lockdown in light of the increased demand for online services.
The new £1m CBILS loan will therefore enable Pet Place to expand its online activity and support the relaunch of its website.
The retailer will also use the funds to increase the availability of certain product lines and pay its suppliers during the gonoging crisis.
Sion Pritchard, director at Pet Place, said: “Our online presence has always been designed to supplement the revenue generated by our physical stores so the sudden and vast increase in online orders presented a major challenge.
“While we’ve been able to successfully redeploy our resources, we wouldn’t have been able to move so quickly or meet the working capital demands of such an exercise without this emergency funding – particularly given the level of investment we’ve put into our stores in the last year.”
He added: “Our overall business has been by no means immune to the economic effects of the current pandemic but, with the support of the team at Lloyds Bank, we’ve been able to meet them head on while keeping our employees safe and our suppliers paid in full.”
Trevor Percival, relationship director at Lloyds Bank, said: “We’ve been by the side of Pet Place for more than a decade and, in that time, have seen it evolve its offer while delivering growth.
“It’s perhaps no surprise then that the team had been agile enough to adapt its operations so quickly and use the loan scheme to reduce the impact of lockdown on sales.”
He added: “As current measures ease, I’ve every expectation that Sion and the team will have developed a stronger more resilient business for the future.”
