Petco: The Pet Parents Partner reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
The shopping, grooming/vet-booking and loyalty app for a big pet-store chain — where the «everything in one place» convenience constantly breaks against technical unreliability.
What users love
When it works — a convenient «store-nearby in one place»
For loyal customers the value is real: order in-app and pick up in store, same-day delivery, checking stock before a trip, barcode-scan to re-buy and price-matching. Many call it «the best of both worlds».
Love the store, love the app. Order in app, pickup in store is the best of both worlds.
I love the same day delivery and all the deals
Easy to use. Barcode scan to re-buy is awesome.
Vital Care discounts and rewards genuinely save money — when they land
Those for whom the program works praise the tangible savings: rewards on repeat food purchases, member discounts, three-day hold on online orders. Some users even flipped their rating from 1 to 5 after updates fixed the rewards bugs.
still LUVing Petco! Vital care rewards ROCK!
Always love going to Petco & the rewards make a huge difference :)
The most recent update fixed many of the issues I was having with the app and it's rewards program.
Stores and staff rescue what the app drops
Again and again people separate a great in-store experience from a failing app: friendly staff who know their dogs by name, help with new breeds, grooming and Vetco vet services. The store often fixes what the app broke.
Terrible app. Crashes constantly, can't log in, doesn't update on its own, and seems to be getting worse. Luckily the actual store is helpful.
Your employees are very helpful and always greats us with a Smile when we come in They know my dogs very well, Layla-Lew and Luna-tic. Love you guys❣️
Not only did they help us get EVERYTHING we needed for our new pup, but gave us some areas to research the breed, and we signed up for training that day.
What users hate
The app hangs on the splash screen and won't load for weeks
The single most common complaint: on launch the app shows a blue splash screen with a dog and logo — and goes no further. People reinstall, clear cache, switch phones, but for months see only «down for maintenance» or an endless spinner.
Doesn't work. there's a Petco splash screen and nothing else.
broken app.. can't get past the opening screen that says Petco
Haven't been able to use this app in months. Hangs on title screen
Logging in is an endless loop of «ruh roh» errors
You can't use the app without signing in — but login constantly fails with «something went wrong» or «ruh roh», even after repeated password resets. Often it forces you to log in every few minutes or on every open.
never lets me log in, get an error message every time
ruh roh. I can never login. I just get the same error message.
Can't use the app without logging in. Can't log in cause I get a ruh roh error
Booking grooming and vet appointments can't be completed
The «schedule appointment» button does nothing, the screen freezes, and the form loops you in circles: you fill in the pet profile, it dumps you back to the same screen with empty fields. Stores lose booked customers; people end up booking by desktop or phone.
This app never works to schedule grooming appts. Really frustrating.
can't get pass schedule grooming page. select schedule grooming appointment and it gets stuck at the next screen. press schedule doesn't do anything.
it again takes you to the personal information page that did not retain the info from your last entry. It keeps going around and around getting nowhere. They lost two large grooms
Search returns a blank screen with no images or products
You search for food — the app says «N results» but shows a blank screen with numbers down the left edge and nothing clickable. Product images don't load, so without the exact name you can't find anything.
when I am searching for a product this app does not show me my results. It says results but no items are viewable.
everytime I try to search or use app this is the outcome blank screen says like 86 options on side of it.
This week, no item images load. None. So unless you know the exact name of the product, you aren't finding what you are looking for.
The app hijacks the browser — so why have it at all?
Once installed, the app blocks the website: tapping a product in the browser force-launches the app, while signing in «in the app» opens a web page. It's a closed loop, and many say the site works fine and the app is pointless.
I hate that you have to use the app on your phone, it won't let you stay on the web version.
Now sign-in opens a web browser. Why need the app then?
once the app is installed they will no longer let me check nearby stores for a product. even if I go to the website clicking on a product opens the app
Brutal slowness: loading screens are an exercise in patience
Every action — opening a product, the cart, checkout — takes forever, regardless of network, and has dragged on for years with no fix. Often it's faster to get in the car and drive to the store than to wait on the app.
This app is TERRIBLE. It takes years for anything to load.
The app is SO slow. It takes forever to load, no matter what network (WiFi or not)
Extremely Slow and Sometimes Buggy App. Just getting screens to load is an exercise in patience.
Vital Care: they say it's cancel-anytime, then lock you in for a year
Store staff promise Vital Care is cancel-anytime, but support says it's a one-year contract with no early exit and the card can't be removed. The cancel tab also often won't load — some keep paying $10/mo for another 11 months.
VitalCare is a total scam. employees tell you you can cancel after a month but you're locked into a year!
ITS A TRAP! The app does not allow me to access my rewards vitalcare premium plan AND the plan is a trap into a 1year commitment?!?
The only page that's not functioning: "vital care premier" tab under profile. One needs this page to load in order to cancel a subscription.
Rewards get lost: a 3-coupon cap and points that expire fast
The loyalty program frustrates as much as the bugs: points must be manually «claimed», they expire fast, and the app won't let you apply more than three rewards at once. In-store purchases aren't tracked, and people lose tens of dollars.
"See all" for vital care points isn't a selectable field, it doesn't load anything. This prevents you from using more than three rewards at a time in the app.
You have to proactively load rewards vs them just appearing. Then the reward expires quickly. I've lost about $30 to this.
i have 10 rewards availableand will only let me use 3.
Items are «in stock» — until you reach checkout
The app shows items as available, lets you add them to cart, then at checkout or after payment reveals they're out of stock — orders get cancelled for no reason. Online prices are also higher than in-store, which feels deceptive.
Claims things are out of stock when they were listed as available, but only once you reach the check out page.
Cancelled my order for no reason. App says the items are still in stock.
never have the stuff available on line even those they say they have it until you pay
After checkout you get pushed credit cards and third-party offers
After finishing an order for pet food, users get pitched an airline credit card, Sirius XM or AAA. It reads as unprofessional and «scam-like», and push notifications constantly nudge you to spend more.
why am i being solicited an airline credit card for a pet store. unprofessional and scam behavior
Why are you guys offering me random stuff after checkout? Sirius XM? Credit cards? seriously....
then offered a discount on AAA after declining.
The pet profile is useless — the data isn't saved
The app makes you build a pet profile but then makes you re-enter the same info for every appointment. Pets can't be removed via the app, birthdays shift by a day, and there's no vet history — people ask for a separate Vetco app.
app makes you build a profile for your pet, but also makes you manually reenter all info every time you want to make an appointment. what was the point in the profile
Having to enter the information about my cat every time I make an appointment even though I have signed in is wild.
Convenient and easy to use. has some buggy issues every now and then. you can't remove pets from your account through the app.