Things have changed a fair bit in 10 years

Back in 2005 Tony Blair was elected for a third term, while Charles and Camilla got hitched. London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics, then suffered the terrible bombing on July 7th. Liverpool FC won their 5th European Cup, while Lance Armstrong won his 7th Tour de France. Live 8 concerts were held to highlight global poverty, while New Orleans was smashed by Hurricane Katrina. Oh and in the basement of veterinary surgery just outside Bristol a small business was started.
That was us, Pet Drugs Online, and now we’re nigh on 10 years old. As great aunt Maude was so fond of saying, “my how we’ve grown”*.

A tentative dip of a veterinary toe in then unknown waters of e-commerce, Pet Drugs Online was at first an experiment to see if pet owners really would buy their medicines via the internet. Employee No.1 Steph, (who now oversees the prescription team) would regale the vets with news of how 5, then 10, and eventually an incredible 20 orders were placed each day. There was an appetite and it was growing.

The following years have seen a huge number of changes for both us and our customers. We’ve out grown four buildings and have had five iterations of our website. Our customers now shop by smartphone rather than landline, while more prescriptions are now sent via email and social media than post. Initially were part of a veterinary group with 9 surgeries, but now we total over 150. Which offers us business stability and an increasing pool of expertise to call upon, all focused on the one thing that has stayed the same – making pets better!

From day one, the focus of Pet Drugs Online has been to lower the cost of veterinary medicine and to make this service available to all of the UK. That way customers get more meds for their money, and that means longer term, higher quality care for their pets. Which is the point. It’s about the pets. And although we now serve 1000’s of customers a day rather than 5 or 10, we need to remember this lies at the very heart of what we do.

What will the next decade hold for Pet Drugs Online? No idea! We’ll be ready, looking at each and every new development (3D printed tablets anyone?) to see if it can help make pets better – and if it is possible/practical/feasible. But who knows what the world will be like in 2025! After all in 2005 who would have predicted Bournemouth in the Premier League, twerking becoming an entry in the dictionary or that beards would regain a level of popularity not seen since Victoria ruled!
*And I’ve never worked out why great Aunt Maude so muddled her impersonal pronouns