Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho still hears this belief treated as an unquestioned rule by pet businesses trying to grow online: whoever charges less wins the sale. It shapes pricing decisions, promotional calendars and entire growth strategies. It is also, according to research on how shoppers actually choose sellers, only partly true, and the part that is missing changes the whole picture.
Why the myth feels obviously true
Price is the easiest thing for a shopper to compare across sellers. It sits right on the product page, requires no research, and settles a decision in seconds when two listings otherwise look identical. That visibility makes it tempting to treat price as the single lever that decides who gets the sale, especially when a competitor undercuts by even a small margin.
What the data on seller choice actually shows
Global research into what actually drives shoppers to choose one online seller over another tells a more layered story. Product quality, not price, comes out as the single biggest factor cited by shoppers overall, ahead of promotions, discounts and reviews. Hugo Galvao reassures that price still matters, but it shares the stage with factors that do not show up as clearly on a comparison page.
The picture gets more specific at a country level. In Brazil, the deciding factor for many shoppers is not the sticker price itself but the cost of delivery, a distinct variable that can make an otherwise cheaper product feel expensive once shipping is added, or make a slightly pricier product feel like the better deal when delivery is free or clearly affordable. A seller fixated only on the product’s listed price is optimizing the wrong number.
Why this matters even more for pet products
Pet purchases carry a layer of caution that a lower price alone rarely overcomes. A shopper unfamiliar with a discount brand of dog food is weighing more than the price difference; they are weighing whether an animal they care about will tolerate it well; whether the ingredients match what a trusted vet or a familiar label already promised. To Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho, that hesitation is exactly why quality and trust signals tend to outweigh a marginal price advantage in this category more than in categories with lower emotional stakes.
Delivery cost compounds this further, since pet products like food and litter are heavy, and a shopper who feels stung by an unexpectedly high shipping fee on a bulky order is unlikely to return, regardless of how competitive the original product price looked.
What this means for pricing strategy
None of this means price stops mattering. It means a pet e-commerce business chasing growth by shaving margin on price alone is optimizing for the wrong signal, while quality assurance, transparent delivery costs and trust-building elements like reviews and clear product information do more to win the sale than most sellers give them credit for.
A more effective approach treats price as one input among several, investing at least as much attention into making delivery costs predictable and transparent, and into building the kind of product trust that makes a shopper comfortable paying a fair price for something their pet actually needs, rather than the cheapest possible option they are unsure about.
Hugo Galvao has built his approach at Enjoy Pets around exactly that balance, treating trust and delivery transparency as seriously as price itself. More on how that shows up in practice is available at www.enjoypets.com.br.
