Adding grooming to a pet store: space, pricing and booking

Grooming changes how a pet store works. A food customer visits every four weeks if you are lucky; a grooming customer visits every four to eight weeks by appointment — and walks past your shelves twice each time, at drop-off and at pickup.

This guide covers what you need to add grooming, how to price it, and how to run the book so it actually makes money.

Should a pet store add grooming?

Add grooming if at least two of these are true:

• Customers already ask you to recommend a groomer.
• You have (or can make) a separate, ventilated room with water and drainage.
• You know a skilled groomer who wants a stable chair — or you will start with self-wash.
• Your area has more dogs than grooming capacity (long waits at nearby salons).

Don’t add it just to fill space. Grooming is skilled, physical work, and a bad groom loses a food customer as well as a grooming one.

Start small: self-wash first

A self-wash station is the lowest-risk start:

• Equipment: a raised tub with steps or ramp, tethers, a hose with a mixer, a stand dryer, towels, aprons.
• Sell it as a timed service — e.g. 30 minutes — with shampoo and towels included.
• Upsell a nail trim by a staff member, or premium shampoo.

If the self-wash books out every weekend, you have your proof that a full grooming service will sell.

Pricing grooming by size and coat

Most groomers price by size and adjust for coat. Build your menu as one service per type with size variations:

Service	Small	Medium	Large	Giant
Bath & brush	short slot			long slot
Full groom				longest slot
Nail trim	same for all

Fill in prices from what groomers near you charge; times should reflect how long your groomer really takes.

Add-ons that sell well at check-in:

• De-matting (priced per 15 minutes)
• De-shedding treatment
• Teeth brushing
• Paw balm, bandana, cologne

In GetPetStorePOS, each service is a product of type service with size variations, so the price and the time block follow the size you pick. See grooming bookings.

Booking rules that prevent chaos

• Block time by service and size, not a fixed slot for everyone.
• One calendar per groomer with working hours and breaks.
• Reminders the day before — through your SMS or WhatsApp provider.
• No-show note on the profile. After a second no-show, ask for a deposit.
• Behaviour notes on the pet: “nervous with dryers”, “muzzle for nails”. They show on every booking.

One ticket for groom and retail

The most useful thing you can do for your numbers is to keep groom and retail on one ticket. When grooming lives in a separate app:

• The shampoo and the bag of food bought at pickup go through the till separately.
• You cannot see how much a grooming customer spends in total.
• Groomer commission is worked out by hand.

When the booking becomes the sale, the report shows the true value of a grooming visit — usually far more than the groom price alone.

Paying groomers

Common models:

• Hourly or salary — predictable, good for a new service.
• Commission on services — rewards busy groomers.
• Chair rental — the groomer runs their own book; you collect rent.

Whatever you choose, set the commission rate per groomer in the POS so the sales report does the maths.

The first 90 days

1. Month 1: self-wash or one groomer two days a week. Book existing customers first.
2. Month 2: add reminders and rebook every customer at pickup.
3. Month 3: look at grooming customers’ total spend versus non-grooming customers. Decide whether to add days.

If you also want online booking requests, reminders and review requests run for you, the bundle adds a managed website and the pet-grooming snapshot for HighLevel.