What Petland's Top Store Did in Year Two That Most Franchises Miss

You buy a 25-year-old pet store. You attend your first franchise trade show as the new owner. You fly home and decide to rebuild the operation from the ground up.

Twelve months later, you win Store of the Year.

Fort Myers takes Store of the Year in year two

Petland named its Fort Myers, Florida franchise the 2026 Store of the Year at the company's annual awards banquet in Orlando. The recognition goes to the top performer across nine categories: year-over-year sales growth, profitability, financial reporting, operational performance, customer reviews, training participation, support of company marketing and private-label programs, and community involvement.

The timing makes it notable: Tom, Camille, and Brad Popplewell took over the store just over a year before the award, making this their second year as Petland franchisees. The store has served Southwest Florida for more than 25 years, but the new ownership achieved a 21% year-over-year sales increase while scoring across every evaluation metric.

One year, and the changes stuck

Most retail turnarounds don't show up in the numbers overnight. Fort Myers did it in one year, which means the Popplewells made decisions fast and the changes stuck.

Petland's scoring system is worth paying attention to even if you don't run a franchise. The nine categories map to what separates strong independents from the rest: sales growth (can you actually move more product year over year), profitability (are you keeping margin or giving it away), operational performance (does the store run the same way when you're not there), customer reviews (what people say when you're not in the room), and community involvement (do you show up or just take).

The company's COO, Steve Steele, called it "what can happen when outstanding leadership is combined with a dedicated team and a commitment to continual improvement." That reads like boilerplate until you realize Fort Myers was competing against stores that have been in the system for decades with established playbooks and supplier relationships.

The move list is the playbook

For the store owner: The Popplewells' move list after their first trade show is the playbook, expanded store hours, enhanced sales training, leadership development investment, and a focus on customer experience. None of those require franchise support or a corporate playbook. If you're running a single location and wondering what levers actually move the number, that's the short list.

For the buyer: Petland's scoring system weights training participation and private-label program support, which tells you the company believes product knowledge and house-brand attachment drive performance. If your reps are pitching training materials or exclusive SKUs and you're waving them off, the top stores in systems like this are saying yes.

Post-acquisition execution speed

The story Petland is telling here is about post-acquisition execution speed. The Popplewells didn't spend a year "learning the business", they came back from one trade show and rebuilt the operation. That's either confidence or recklessness, and a 21% sales lift suggests it was the former.

What's interesting is what didn't make the winner's list: inventory breadth, SKU count, category mix, pricing strategy. Petland's nine scoring categories are almost entirely about operations, people, and local reputation. You can win without the perfect assortment if you run the store well and the community trusts you.

The other signal: the source names three other finalists, Petland Frisco, Texas (owned by Jake and Arti Patel); Petland Novi, Michigan (owned by Alaina Markel); and Petland Lake Saint Louis, Missouri (owned by Tom and Mary Killmade and Jeff Hartmann), but doesn't specify how long any of them have been in the system. What we do know is Fort Myers beat stores that have been around for decades, which suggests fresh operators with something to prove can outwork tenured franchisees who've settled into a rhythm.

You can win Store of the Year in your second year if you treat the first trade show like a blueprint, not a vacation.

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Compare sales by day-part to your hours

1. If you just bought a store or took over a category... pull the last 12 months of sales by day-part and compare to your current hours. The Popplewells expanded hours as one of their first moves, if you're closing at 6pm and missing the after-work crowd, you're leaving revenue on the table.

2. If you send your team to a trade show or distributor event... block two hours the week you get back to list every operational change you're committing to in the next 90 days. Fort Myers didn't let the trade show insights sit in a notebook.

3. If you're weighing a training program a vendor is offering... say yes to one this quarter. Petland scores training participation because it correlates with performance, your reps who know the science behind the product close more and generate fewer returns.

4. If you haven't audited your customer review presence in six months... do it this week. It's a scored category for Petland's top performers, which means it moves the business. Google, Yelp, Facebook, read the last 20, fix the one thing that shows up three times.

5. If you're running a mature store and growth has flattened... ask whether you've stopped improving because the business doesn't need it or because you've gotten comfortable. Fort Myers beat stores that have been in the system for decades. New ownership has energy, but energy isn't proprietary.

21% growth from work most operators defer

Fort Myers won Store of the Year in year two by doing the work most operators put off: longer hours, better training, stronger leadership, tighter customer experience. The 21% sales growth came from execution, not luck.

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