I’m sure that we all know the old adage and we often do shop around to get the best prices, particularly on large ticket items. But how often do you do it for those veterinary products, like wormers, flea treatments and regular medications? I was astonished to find out that many people are still just getting them from their vet and paying full retail price!

I don’t believe in paying full retail price for anything so I usually do most of my veterinary product shopping online and you can save big bucks by doing so, even taking into account the price of postage and handling. There are literally dozens of places offering veterinary products at cheaper prices so you still need to shop around to find the best total price. For example, one place might have Revolution cheap as chips but charge significantly more for their wormer products. I’ve found in some instances that it’s even cheaper still if I buy my flea products one place and wormers in another, despite the double charge for postage.

So for the Australian consumers out there, I would recommend the following places for online shopping:

• Aussie Pet Direct is owned and operated by a friend of a friend. Not that I get mate’s rates or anything but he provides a quick and reliable service and I get to support his business as well. He has all the usual range of flea products - Revolution, Frontline Plus, Advocate and Advantage - as well as intestinal wormers and other supplements for your cats health, like Cat Lax, medicated shampoos and dental products. Paying is easy - just use your credit card, money order, cheque or direct debit.
• Priceless Pets has great prices on most veterinary products and have reasonably quick service. I have only one issue with this website and that is that you cannot submit your order and payment directly through their site. Basically you choose your items, it generates a form for you to print out and sign, then you have to scan it in to the computer to email or alternatively you can fax it through to them or send by normal post. Emailing the order form and faxing provide the quickest delivery time of course. It’s a little fiddly, but like I said, great prices so if you are saving a lot of money, then it’s worth the extra bit of fiddling to get your order into them
• Vet Products Direct is not always the cheapest place online to buy but they do offer a loyalty scheme. So if you’re buying lots of product and regularly, the points scheme may help you attract a discount in the long run. Quick and speedy service.
• Vet Pet Supplies Online is an online shop that was referred to me by a friend. Their prices for the products that I use regularly on the cats are quite competitive but as yet I have not ordered from there so I can’t comment on their service.
• Petwise is the pet shop I buy from locally when I’ve left it too late to buy online and I need stuff now. They aren’t as cheap as the other online stores for flea products and the like but they do offer a loyalty scheme as well.

Just as an aside, if you happen to use Hills specialty cat foods, you can get a free dry food cannister with your purchase until stocks run out. They have also started a new loyalty scheme where if you purchase Hills foods from the one pet store all the time, they will send you out a gift voucher after you have paid for $200 of product. Essentially you get one bag of food free for every 10 that you purchase within a six month period.

November 4th, 2007 | Tags: cat health | Category: Cats |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL