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With the big dogs; Pet Supplies `Plus' grows to 3rd-largest pet food specialist.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Brent Snavely

For Frank Arcori, selling pet food and supplies is more fun than being in the grocery business.

What's more, Arcori typifies the kind of Pet Supplies "Plus'' franchisee that has been a cornerstone of the Farmington Hills-based specialty pet food retailers' national expansion.

"The difference in being a food retailer and a pet food retailer is that the customer in the food business shops with you because they have to,'' Arcori said. "The people in the pet-supply business shop with you because they want to.''

Pet Supplies "Plus''/USA Inc. is the nation's third-largest specialty pet food retailer. Since 1994, the company has grown from 95 stores and systemwide sales of $150 million to 218 stores and systemwide sales that are expected to top $425 million this year.

In the early 1990s, Pet Supplies "Plus'' expanded mostly in the Midwest. But by the mid-1990s the company turned its attention to the Northeast and in 1997 the company began opening stores in the South.

"We expand one region at a time,'' said President and CEO Harvey Solway.

However, the company continues to face competition from its much larger rivals - Phoenix-based PetSmart Inc. and San Diego-based Petco Animal Supplies Inc. - and must also worry discount retailers Target Corp.'s and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s desire to get more involved in the...