How Chewy’s Handwritten Notes Built A $10B+ Business

In a market where customers can buy the exact same pet food from Amazon, Walmart, or a dozen other retailers, Chewy made a unique choice that has set its brand apart. Instead of competing solely on price and convenience, they invested in making customers feel genuinely cared for, and their famous handwritten notes were one way they did so. Over time, those small moments became one of the reasons customers stayed. 

In this article, we’ll break down how Chewy used handwritten notes to build one of the most loyal customer bases in e-commerce, what the research says about why it works, and how your business can apply the same strategy at scale. Contact Scribe today to get started and get 200 letters free.

The Handwritten Note Strategy Behind Chewy’s Growth 

Chewy’s handwritten cards were far from generic marketing mailers. They were tied to real moments in customers’ lives, from welcome cards sent after a first purchase to birthday cards for pets to handwritten sympathy notes paired with flowers when a customer lost an animal they loved. Some customers even received hand-painted portraits of their pets, completely unprompted. 

These gestures worked because they felt unexpected. In a world of automated email marketing, most customers are used to feeling like a transaction. A handwritten card stands out precisely because it communicates that the company sees you, values you, and appreciates you enough to take the time to show it. 

That emotional connection helped Chewy build loyalty in a market where most competitors felt interchangeable. Customers who felt that level of care didn’t just stay loyal to Chewy, they talked about it, and posts about their sympathy notes and hand-painted portraits spread organically across social media, bringing in new customers who had never heard of the brand. 

Of course, it makes sense that when people feel cared for, they stay, and when they stay, they spend more. But the numbers Chewy has seen back this up in a way that’s hard to ignore. 

How Customer Loyalty Translated Into Revenue for Chewy 

In its IPO filing, Chewy disclosed something almost no e-commerce company can claim: in fiscal year 2018, its existing customer base generated 120% of the prior year’s total sales, meaning repeat customers, without counting a single new acquisition, grew revenue past the prior year’s ceiling. 

Over the same period, Chewy’s active customer count grew from 6.8 million to 10.6 million, a 56% increase, and they sent roughly 11 million handwritten cards per year, including around 6 million holiday cards. Today, Chewy holds an estimated 41% share of the U.S. online pet supply market and serves 21 million active customers who spend an average of $591 per year, which is exceptionally high retention for any e-commerce brand. 

What Research Says About Handwritten Notes 

Chewy’s results are compelling, but they are not an isolated case. A peer-reviewed field experiment published in the Journal of Interactive Marketing tested handwritten notes on real e-commerce customers and found that recipients spent roughly twice as much on future purchases compared to customers who received a printed note or no note at all.

What makes the findings especially relevant is who responded most. The effect was strongest among existing customers who already had a relationship with the brand, which is what Chewy focused on. Chewy’s handwritten notes were used to deepen loyalty with customers who already trusted the company, at the exact moments when that trust mattered most.

The research also found that adding a discount or promotional offer alongside the note actually canceled out the effect. The warmth and sincerity of a handwritten note is what drives the response, and layering on an incentive undermines that. Chewy’s program worked in part because the gestures were never transactional. The sympathy card, the birthday note, the hand-painted portrait, none of them asked for anything in return.

How Any E-Commerce Brand Can Apply Chewy’s Handwritten Strategy

Most businesses already understand that personal outreach builds stronger customer relationships. The issue is that doing it manually takes significant time, and traditional handwritten mail services can be expensive enough to make it feel out of reach for many companies. That is where Scribe changes things.

Scribe allows e-commerce brands to automate handwritten outreach while maintaining the authentic feel of real handwritten mail. Using real pens, robotic arms, natural handwriting variation, handwritten envelopes, and local postmarks, Scribe creates handwritten notes that genuinely look and feel human. Through CRM and e-commerce workflow integrations, brands can automatically trigger handwritten mail for welcome cards, birthday cards, subscription milestones, customer thank you notes, win-back campaigns, sympathy cards, and holiday outreach, without adding manual work for their team.

What makes Scribe especially accessible for businesses of all sizes is the flexibility. There are no batch minimums, so you can send a single note or a thousand, depending on what your business needs at any given time. You can also purchase letters in bulk and use them as credits over time, which means smaller brands can still access competitive pricing without committing to large send volumes upfront. It is a way of adding handwritten outreach to your strategy that is genuinely affordable and scalable at your own pace, not on someone else’s terms.

Start Your Handwritten Direct Mail Campaign With Scribe Today

The kind of customer experience Chewy became known for is not reserved for companies with massive budgets or large teams. With the right tools, any e-commerce brand can start creating those same moments, grow into them over time, and build the kind of loyalty that keeps customers coming back. 

If you want to build stronger customer relationships and improve retention through handwritten direct mail, contact Scribe today and get 200 letters free.