‘It’s been an adventure growing my £90m pet store business’
Dean Richmond bought the business from his family for £600,000.
It was a weekday afternoon in March and there were lots of customers at Pets Corner’s Crowborough store in East Sussex, one of more than 160 stores across the UK. Yet one busy but smiling workshop worker still finds time to offer a cup of tea as he waits for Dean Richmond, owner of the family-run, £90 million business he took over in 1998 when he was 25.
While Richmond spends no more than £100,000 on advertising, it spends £1.5 million a year on staff training, which it calls “our secret sauce”. I may not be here for pet research, but it’s obvious where customer service and staff knowledge is in this business.
“This is our advertising,” says Richmond. “If a customer comes in and talks to someone who knows what they’re doing, people would rather talk to a human on ChatGPT. I’ve been very protective of staff training and our eight academies.”
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Richmond, Sussex native, is also determined that Pets Corner remains a family business. His parents, Mark and Sandra, opened their first pet shop in Haywards Heath in 1968 with £2,000.
“I think family-run businesses are making more long-term decisions and are ready to invest,” he says. “Accountants have asked me over the years, ‘Why did you spend so much money on this?’ they asked. because I wanted to do it properly, build it with care, and build it to last.
Many jobs have almost failed in Pets Corner’s rise to become the second largest pet retailer in the UK behind Pets at Home (PETS.L), but Richmond has focused on detail and growth since his first job as a £200-a-week sales consultant.
Having started making quality bird feeders and rabbit runs, which he sold to shops and local garden centres, he was intent on building a business with his youthful ingenuity before studying business at Crawley College and leaving school after six months.
She describes her father as “a bit of a Basil Fawlty” – he kept lights on inside with a no-smoking sign in the window – and Richmond moved into the Hove store, run by manager Sue Sayers, who still works in the buying team at the company today.
Dean Richmond is the CEO and owner of the second largest pet retailer in the UK.
The pair focused on customers, refused to close the store for lunch and sales rose 25% before Richmond’s father asked him to increase revenue at the original Haywards Heath store. Then-assistant manager Steve Holland had just retired from Pets Corner as a retail manager.
The third store, run by 19-year-old Richmond, opened in Brighton at a time when nutritious and higher-quality brands were entering the market. He was promoted to regional manager and wrote company training manuals at nights.
By 1998, father and son were far from aligned and were “fighting every day in business”. Richmond later bought the business for £600,000; By then it had four stores in garden centers and three on the high street.
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It opened with minimal fanfare in 1999, building its flagship store in Croydon, and Richmond soon realized from his initial research that there were not enough dog owners in the area. Pet Corner faced bankruptcy, but the facility was founded by a separate company and they freed themselves six months later.
The site was later taken over by Maplin and when the electronics retailer collapsed the image used by the Financial Times was of the Croydon store originally built by Pets Corner. “Talk about a curse,” smiles Richmond.
Since then, Richmond, who has taken commercial inspiration from the success of Anita Roddick’s Body Shop, never set out with a five-year strategy given the Croydon crash.
In 2000, a meeting with garden center entrepreneur Nicholas Marshall, who built Country Gardens until it was purchased by Wyevale in a hostile takeover, helped initially boost the garden center franchise. Initial training for staff began the following year.
Pets Corner’s products include its own brand McAdams, the only dry pet food available from RSPCA Assured Farms.
Pets Corner, which has outlets from Poole to Ripon, opened its first standalone store in West Hove in 2007; The car park and road frontage marked a turning point for the business.
Facilities had become difficult to obtain before more two-storey sites became available during the 2008 banking crisis. Richmond has learned to silence homeowners who think only “stinky pet stores” will remain.
The business was also smart about buying veterinary practices and retail rivals such as PamPurredPets for £6 million in 2015. It has also added dog grooming services to its independent sites such as Crowborough.
“We got this site out of the mess [reputedly a crack den] “We turned a bad building into a functioning building that employs a lot of people and sells food that will make pets healthier. That’s what excites me the most,” he says from the store’s first-floor landing.
Richmond said the company, which opened a £7 million center near its Crawley headquarters shortly before the pandemic, would have faced hurdles if distribution had not been set up when COVID hit.
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The firm, which also sells toys and bedding and designs more than 2,500 products, was allowed to trade as a major retailer and subsequently accelerated double-digit growth.
Richmond has also dealt with hurdles such as energy bills rising from £700,000 to £2.7 million in 2023. The firm has grown by 3% since October 2025, with latest revenues recorded at £92.7 million.
“It’s been such an adventure that we almost hit the wall,” says Richmond.
“We’re trying to get the digital piece to work now, but we’re starting to grow again in stores and there’s still life in the old retail system.”
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