Chewy (company) facts for kids
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| Public | |
| Traded as | NYSE: CHWY (Class A) |
| Industry | E-commerce |
| Genre | Pet supplies |
| Founded | September 28, 2009 |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters |
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U.S.
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Area served
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United States |
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Key people
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| Products | Pet food and pet-related products |
| Revenue |  US$10.1 billion (2022) |
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Operating income
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US$55.7 million (2022) |
| US$49.2 million (2022) |
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| Total assets | US$2.52 billion (2022) |
| Total equity | US$214 million (2022) |
| Owner | BC Partners (80%) |
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Number of employees
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19,400 (January 2023) |
Chewy, Inc. is a popular online store in the United States. It sells lots of things for pets, like food, toys, and medicines. Chewy is based in Plantation, Florida. In 2010, Chewy became a "public company." This means people can buy small parts of the company, called shares, on the New York Stock Exchange. Its special symbol there is CHWY.
Contents
Chewy's Story: How It Grew
Starting Small: The Early Years
Chewy began as "Mr. Chewy" in June 2011. It was started by two people, Ryan Cohen and Michael Day. Even though they lost some money at first, the company quickly grew. By 2012, they were making about $26 million a year!
Chewy kept growing fast. By 2017, they were making about $2 billion in sales. They were selling more than half of all pet food online in the U.S. Around this time, other big pet companies like Petco and PetSmart wanted to buy Chewy.
Joining PetSmart and Growing Bigger
In 2017, a company called PetSmart bought Chewy for $3.35 billion. This was the biggest amount ever paid for an online business at that time! Even after being bought, Chewy mostly ran as its own separate business.
Ryan Cohen stayed as the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) for a while. Between 2017 and 2018, Chewy's sales jumped from $2.1 billion to $3.5 billion. A lot of these sales came from customers who signed up for automatic deliveries. In March 2018, Sumit Singh took over as Chewy's new CEO.
Becoming Public and New Services
In 2019, Chewy decided to offer its shares to the public. This is called an Initial Public Offering, or IPO. They wanted to trade their shares on the stock market under the symbol CHWY. In 2018, Chewy had sales of $3.5 billion. By 2019, their sales grew to $4.85 billion!
During the COVID-19 pandemic, more people shopped online. This helped Chewy grow even more. They saw many new customers and kept getting bigger.
Chewy started offering new services for pets and their owners.
- In October 2020, they launched "Connect With a Vet." This is a free online service where you can talk to a vet about your pet's health. It's like a quick check-up from home!
- In November 2020, Chewy began making special pet medicines. These are for pets who need unique prescriptions not found in regular stores.
- In 2020, Chewy and PetSmart decided to become separate companies again.
By March 2021, Chewy was doing very well. They reported sales of over $2 billion in just three months. For the whole year, their sales reached $7.15 billion! In 2022, their sales grew even more, to $8.89 billion.
Expanding Pet Care
Chewy continued to add more services to help pets.
- In August 2022, they started "CarePlus." This program offers pet insurance and wellness plans. It helps pet owners pay for vet visits and other health needs.
- In 2022, Chewy's sales hit $10.1 billion. This was a big increase from the year before.
- In December 2023, Chewy opened its own vet clinics called "Chewy Vet Care." These clinics offer regular check-ups, urgent care, and even surgeries for pets.
Who Runs Chewy?
The first person who started Chewy, Ryan Cohen, said he learned a lot from how Jeff Bezos built Amazon. Cohen wanted Chewy to be super easy for customers to use, just like Amazon.
Ryan Cohen stepped down as CEO in March 2018. Sumit Singh became the new CEO. Before that, Sumit was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Chewy. He also worked at big companies like Dell and Amazon. Sumit led Chewy when it became a public company. Under his leadership, Chewy grew to be worth about $40 billion!
Chewy has many employees. In 2018, they had about 7,000 people working for them. By 2019, that number grew to over 12,000. As of 2021, Chewy has more than 18,000 employees across the United States.
The company is led by a board, and Raymond Svider is the chairman. A company called BC Partners owns about 80% of Chewy. This means they have a lot of say in how the company is run.
