Case Study
Dog Services Marketplace Website — Pooky Dog Case Study
Our own marketplace for everything to do with dogs: groomers, walkers, sitters, kennels, day care and trainers booked and paid for on the site, a dashboard and a page for every business, and a shop alongside.
A marketplace, not a directory
Pooky Dog is our own marketplace for dog owners, live at www.pookydog.co.uk since 4 October 2026: groomers, walkers, sitters, kennels and home boarding, day care and trainers, near you.
If you are thinking of building one, our page on marketplace website development sets out what a marketplace needs and how we build it.
It is not a list of phone numbers. Owners book and pay on the site, the business runs its whole business from its own dashboard, and every booking goes through Pooky Dog.
It is the first marketplace we have built, and it started as a copy of the Mediatopia CMS, the business system every one of our websites runs on, turned into a product of its own.
Tell us about your dog
The home page does not ask an owner to know which kind of business they need. It asks what is going on: away or at work, needs a groom, needs walking, training.
Then where they are, by town, postcode or their own location, and how far they will travel, from one mile to twenty-five, and the matches come back: every business you can book or buy from checked first.
Each kind of business has its own pages, and each town its own page once enough businesses are based there, so Google is shown pages with something on them and nothing thin.
On a phone
The marketplace and the shop, on a phone
Both are built for the phone in an owner’s hand: the marketplace’s questions as big tiles, and the shop as an app, with Departments, Search, Basket and Menu in the bottom bar and every department two taps away.
A business system for every business on it
Every business on Pooky Dog gets the full business system behind it: its own dashboard with bookings, a calendar, invoicing, customers, marketing and reviews, and its own page on the marketplace.
A free package to start, and paid upgrades that unlock more tools, set as ticks on each business’s plan, the same way our clients’ plans work.
A business is approved only after its checks: identity through Stripe, its insurance and, where the law needs one, its licence.
Bookings and payments that run themselves
The owner pays when they book. When the appointment has passed the booking completes, the owner is asked for a review, and the business is paid once the 48 hours to report a problem are up.
The booking, account and order emails go out by themselves, and the daily summary tells us only what needs a person.
Finding businesses was automatic too: a sweep through the UK’s towns from Companies House and OpenStreetMap, and a listing built from each business’s own website — its services and prices, its hours and its photographs — ready for it to claim.
Guides that bring owners in
Owners search for answers long before they book, so Pooky Dog answers them: fifty breed guides, each with its temperament, exercise, grooming, health and the Kennel Club’s tests, and eighteen lists of breeds the way people search, from dogs that don’t shed to breeds for flats.
Fifteen ‘Can dogs eat…?’ pages answer from PDSA and Dogs Trust, with the foods never to give opening on what to do.
Every one of them leads back to the businesses and the shop.
And a shop of its own
The Pooky Dog Shop at shop.pookydog.co.uk sells everything for the dog: collars and leads, beds, toys, bowls, grooming kit, coats and car gear, over 700 products in twelve departments, all with free delivery.
It runs on the Mediatopia CMS in Pooky Dog’s own colours and fonts, dropshipped through the CMS from AliExpress, and the marketplace’s Shop link and footer lead straight to it.
If you have an idea for a marketplace, a booking platform or a shop, that is exactly the work: see The Fishing Tackle Shop for the shops we have built since.
What runs it
A marketplace with a business system behind every business
What Pooky Dog does by itself, every day, so one person can run a national marketplace.
Book and pay on the site
Owners book a groomer, walker, sitter, kennel or trainer and pay on Pooky Dog, by card through Stripe.
Paid after 48 hours
A booking completes when the appointment has passed, and the business is paid once the 48 hours to report a problem are up.
Reviews asked for
Every completed booking asks the owner for a review, so a business’s page fills with reviews from real bookings.
A dashboard for every business
Bookings, a calendar, invoicing, customers, marketing and reviews, with a page on the marketplace, for every business on it.
Free to start, then upgrades
A free package for every business and paid upgrades that unlock more tools, set as ticks on its plan.
Checked before it is listed
Identity through Stripe, insurance and, where the law needs one, the licence, before a business is approved.
Businesses found for it
A sweep through the UK’s towns from Companies House and OpenStreetMap found dog businesses and listed them, ready to claim.
Listings built from their websites
Each listing is filled from the business’s own site: its services and prices, its hours and its photographs.
Town pages Google wants
A page for each kind of business in each town, shown to Google once enough businesses are based there.
Emails that send themselves
Booking, account and order emails to owners and businesses, sent as each thing happens, and a summary each morning of anything that needs a person.
Guides that bring owners in
Fifty breed guides, eighteen breed lists and fifteen ‘Can dogs eat…?’ pages from PDSA and Dogs Trust.
A shop on the Mediatopia CMS
shop.pookydog.co.uk: over 700 products in twelve departments, free delivery, dropshipped from AliExpress through the CMS.
What We Built
Project development work carried out
A Dog-First Finder
What is going on, where you are and how far you will travel, and the checked businesses that match.
A Business System Each
Every business on the marketplace gets its own dashboard and its own page, on a free package with paid upgrades.
Payments Held Fairly
Owners pay when they book; the business is paid once the appointment has passed and the 48 hours to report a problem are up.
A Shop Alongside
shop.pookydog.co.uk on the Mediatopia CMS: over 700 products in twelve departments, all with free delivery.
Common Questions
Dog Services Marketplace Website FAQs
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