Chewy scaled its Autoship model through the 2020 pandemic and hit its first profit

As the pandemic kept people at home, pet owners bought more pet food and supplies online. Chewy, the online pet products retailer, was positioned to capture that shift through its Autoship recurring-subscription program.

In the first quarter of 2020 Chewy reported revenue up 46% to $1.62 billion and added a record 1.6 million net active customers, bringing its total to about 15 million.

Autoship, which auto-orders recurring items like food and medicine, topped $1 billion in quarterly revenue — about 68% of sales — and became the backbone of the model.

Chewy also posted its first quarter of adjusted EBITDA profit, and management said the pandemic-driven shift to online pet buying was likely permanent.

Chewy's first-quarter 2020 revenue jumped 46% to $1.62 billion, it added a record 1.6 million net active customers, and Autoship revenue crossed $1 billion.

Lockdowns pushed pet owners to buy consumables online.

Autoship's recurring subscriptions captured the surge automatically.

Chewy added a record number of new active customers during the quarter.

Revenue per customer rose as people stocked up on consumables.

A recurring, subscription-based product is resilient in a downturn — an existing Autoship base captures a demand spike automatically without needing to acquire customers from scratch.

Chewy carried the 2020 momentum into scale and ultimately its first profitable quarters, with Autoship remaining a persistent revenue base. The pandemic pulled forward years of e-commerce adoption in pet supplies and consolidated share behind Chewy.