Focus on: Business Strategies Twenty years of steady growth and smart acquisitions have propelled Doctors Foster & Smith to the top spot among pet-supply catalogers.

By Reported Donna Loyle

Challenges Ahead

The company’s brand-new mail-order pharmacy service, scheduled to launch this month, is an exciting new opportunity, but one that came with plenty of hard work and due diligence.

“Right now, pet owners don’t have many choices in where they buy their pet pharmaceuticals,” says Foster. If a veterinarian prescribes a certain medication, the client can fill the prescription right there at the vet’s office — and pay a high markup, of course. “We aim to change that,” says Foster. The new DFS pharmacy will enable pet owners to buy pet prescriptions by mail order, similar to how some human prescriptions are sold today.