Demand surges! Stores are提前开启“Spring Festival prices” Shanghai situation↗

Chinese New Year is approaching

Many people are leaving the city to return to their hometowns

What about your beloved pets at home?

In recent years, this has also led to

In-home pet sitting and pet boarding services

And business has been good

Recently,

Reporters visited several pet stores in Shanghai and found

Pre-holiday pet boarding bookings are booming

Some stores were fully booked a month before the Spring Festival

Demand for pet boarding has surged!

Many stores: all fully booked

In a pet store on Baiyin Road, Malu Town, Jiading District, a dozen transparent boarding rooms of various sizes are neatly arranged, most already occupied.

Some cats are lazily curled up sleeping in their nests, others are lively, playing with toys, creating a warm and lively atmosphere. According to reports, the store has 18 boarding spots, all booked by early January.

Another pet store specializing in “free-range rooms” is also experiencing a shortage of “rooms.” It is understood that the store has nine free-range rooms, each over 10 square meters, and since mid-January, they have been nearly full.

To meet the demand for the Spring Festival, they added some large enclosures, but currently, with over ten spots, they are also nearly gone.

Pet Store Manager Liu Hao:

Since October, bookings have been made, and by the Spring Festival, most spots are full. We have dedicated staff to walk the pets, disinfect, monitor with air conditioning 24 hours, and disinfect twice daily. Our biggest feature is that compared to cage-based stores, we make the pets more relaxed. We don’t have very small spaces; the smallest are rooms of over ten square meters.

At a pet store on Xin Chongdong Road, inside Chongming City, reporters saw several cats already in the boarding rooms; nearby, in a glass room, several cats were leisurely walking.

The owner said, the store mainly boards cats, and all more than ten spots are booked; over half of the reserved cats have already checked in. Recently, the store has been busy until 8 or 9 pm closing time every day.

At Ku Pet Pet Sports Park in Taikoo Future Village on Changxing Island, several “fur kids” dogs are playing and running on the lawn, interacting with their owners. According to reports, during the Spring Festival, the park’s revenue has more than doubled. Currently, more than half of the 20 kennels are occupied.

Not only in Shanghai

The pet economy is booming in many places

Reporters learned from several pet service providers in Hangzhou that the cost of pet boarding during the Spring Festival has generally increased by about 50%; some stores started implementing “Spring Festival prices” as early as February 7. However, prices vary greatly among stores, with cat boarding ranging from 60 to over 300 yuan, and dog boarding from 50 to over 500 yuan.

Recently, data from 58.com shows that as the 2026 Spring Festival approaches, demand for life services has risen first in cities. Since January, various services such as housekeeping, pet boarding, second-hand item recycling, and car rentals for returning home have seen concentrated demand, with pet boarding and deep cleaning services increasing by over 40% year-on-year. Meanwhile, after January, the platform’s demand for pet boarding increased by 46% month-on-month, with dog boarding demand being six times that of cats.

In addition to “pet boarding,” there is also “doorstep pet sitting,” with some earning 9,000 yuan in two weeks last year

Besides boarding,

Pet owners often choose

“Doorstep pet sitting” as a common way to settle their pets.

Considering pet habits, prices, and other factors,

Many pet owners

prefer to choose in-home pet sitting services

A netizen who specializes in professional in-home pet sitting said, “Last Spring Festival, I took 132 orders in total. Except for three orders from January 26-28, all others were concentrated between January 29 and February 10.** Total income was 8,890 yuan, rounded to 9,000 yuan.** During the entire Spring Festival last year, I visited 32 families and cared for 49 cats.”

Xiao Hei has been engaged in in-home pet sitting for nearly two years, serving over 300 clients in total. “The New Year is the busiest time of the year! Currently, nearly 50 clients have booked with me.” Xiao Hei said, “A few days before the Spring Festival and until the fifteenth, my family of three earned over 10,000 yuan doing in-home pet sitting. I know a girl who earned more than 6,000 yuan alone last year.”

However, lawyer Zheng Zhiming from Shanghai Zhengyuan Law Firm pointed out that if practitioners lack qualifications and experience, it can easily lead to damage disputes. He suggests that both parties clarify rights and obligations through contracts to avoid risks.

“If a pet gets sick, is attacked by another pet, or gets bitten, who is responsible? Both parties should sign a contract, and the more comprehensive it is, the better protected they are,” Zheng Zhiming said.

Do you have pets at home?

If you’re not at home during the Spring Festival,

how will you arrange for your furry friends?

Leave a message and share your thoughts.

News reporters: Xi Lingyan, Jiang Xiaoyan

Editor: Xu Lulu

Cameramen: Cai Chenhao, Chen Junfeng

Chief Editor: Jin Yingying