Dive Brief:
- Chewy’s Autoship subscription service outpaced overall sales growth for the company, CEO Sumit Singh said on a Q1 2026 earnings call Wednesday. Autoship sales grew over 10% year over year compared to overall net sales growth of 7.7% in the same period.
- Investments in Autoship drive recurring purchases from customers, while improvements to the experience drive incremental sales, according to Singh. In both cases, the effort drives net sales per active customer growth.
- Convenience, trusted service and customers’ reliance on Autoship are some of the key elements of Chewy’s value proposition, Singh said. “We believe these advantages become even more relevant in periods where consumers prioritize value, reliability and trusted relationships.”
Dive Insight:
Chewy sees Autoship as a reliable flywheel that is driving dependable spending behavior even as consumers pull back on expenditures.
Autoship accounted for 84.4% of total net sales in the quarter.
The pet retailer added nearly 200,000 net customers in the first quarter of 2026 despite the weaker consumer environment, according to Singh. The online pet retailer’s active customer base is up to 21.5 million active customers, and net sales per active customer rose to $597.
The Chewy+ paid membership program has been neutral for the company’s 2026 results so far, Singh said. The company is “very closely evaluating” its performance, including its ability for pushing increased net sales per active customer.
Chewy’s subscriptions could face competition should the economy continue to weaken. Consumers worried about recession may have to choose between some of their services in order to save money, according to Kate Muhl, VP analyst at Gartner.
But the pet retailer still sees plenty of room for growth ahead, according to Singh. Experience-led products with Autoship and Chewy+ are playing a role in this strategy.
“We believe the primary source of share gain in the pet industry is still within large e-commerce players such as ourselves,” Singh said. “And furthermore, when you look at our customer behavior, we continue to see lower churn, healthier reactivation rates as well as healthy yet modestly worse than expected new customer acquisition.”
Chewy reported net sales of $3.4 billion in the first quarter of 2026, according to an earnings report. Net income was $94.8 million.
