By 1998, father and son were far from aligned and “fought every day in business”. Richmond subsequently purchased the business for £600,000, which by then had four stores in garden centres and three on the high street.

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Building their biggest flagship store in Croydon in 1999, it opened to minimal fanfare and Richmond soon realised that the area didn’t have enough dog owners from its initial research. Pets Corner faced bankruptcy but the facility was set up in a separate company, and they freed themselves after six months.

The site was later taken over by Maplin and, when the electronics retailer went bust, the image used by the Financial Times was the Croydon store originally built by Pets Corner. “Talk about a curse,” smiles Richmond.

Since then, Richmond, who took business inspiration from the late Anita Roddick’s Body Shop success, has never set out with a five-year strategy, given the Croydon mishap.

In 2000, a meeting with garden centre entrepreneur Nicholas Marshall, who built up Country Gardens until it was bought by Wyevale in a hostile takeover, initially helped to grow its garden centre concessions. The first classroom training for staff began the following year.

Pets Corner, which has outlets from Poole to Ripon, opened its first standalone store in West Hove in 2007, with parking and road frontage signifying a turning point for the business.

Facilities had become hard to acquire before the 2008 banking crisis saw more two-storey sites become available. Richmond learned to quell landlords who thought there would just be “smelly pet shops”.

The business has also been astute in acquiring vets practices and retail rivals such as PamPurredPets, for £6m in 2015. It also added dog grooming services to its standalone sites such as Crowborough.

“We’ve turned this site from a mess [reputedly a crack den] to contributing to the local economy and community,” he says on the landing of the store’s first floor. “We’ve turned a knackered building into something that functions, employs lots of people and is selling food that will make pets healthier. That excites me the most.”

When COVID hit, Richmond says the business would have hit hurdles without its distribution set up, having opened a £7m centre near its Crawley headquarters shortly before the pandemic.

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The firm, which also sells toys and beds and designs over 2,500 products, was allowed to trade as an essential retailer and later propelled into double digit growth.

Richmond has also dealt with hurdles such as energy bills rising from £700,000 to £2.7m in 2023. Since October 2025, the firm has grown 3%, while latest revenues recorded £92.7m.

“It has been an adventure with the amount of times it’s nearly gone to the wall,” says Richmond.

“We are now trying to make the digital piece work, but we are back in growth in stores and there is still life in the old retail dog yet.”

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