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

2003 They purchase Flying Fish Express; unveil their own line of dog food; expand their headquarters from 240,000 square feet to almost 300,000 square feet; and open the nation’s first veterinarian-owned mail-order pet pharmacy.

About Doctors Foster & Smith
Headquarters: Rhinelander, WI
Products: pet supplies, food and medications; live fish and aquarium products
Number of catalog titles: six
Number of Web sites: four
Sales channels: print catalog 63%; Web 35%; retail 2%
Ranking on the Catalog Success Top 200 list of catalogers (as measured by housefile growth): 148
Number of employees: 650
SKUs: 12,000 to 14,000 (about 5,400 unique products)
2002 sales: $156 millio
Projected 2003 sales: $174 million
Number of catalogs mailed in 2002: 41 million
Number of catalog requests in 2002: 300,000
Catalog printer: R.R. Donnelley and Sons
Growth even in a down economy: Officials at DFS spun off a title for cat products (above, far left) and bought five other pet/pet-supply companies in the past two years, including Pet Warehouse.