Pediatric nurse launches second career as e-commerce business owner

A local nurse has announced plans to switch her professional focus from children to pets.

Joy Kashner is retiring from a career as a pediatric nurse that’s spanned two decades. But even as that career winds down, she’s launching her second career as the new owner of the e-commerce site MyPetSupplyWarehouse.com, which will be based in Lebanon County.

The site’s main focus is supplies for dogs and cats and products range from bowls and collars to vitamins and supplements, as well as aquarium supplies and treatments for fish.

Kashner has worked as a pediatric nurse at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital in Hershey for most of her career. Prior to that she did pediatric home care.

“I’m retiring May 30, but I wanted a new project to keep me moving, to continue to have some income and spend more time with my family,” she said. “It’s something I’ve been dreaming about for a few years.”

As a nurse, she said the skills she developed included compassion. “Working with the pet industry is a way I can use that compassion. The trend is for pet owners to care for their pet as if they were family members,” Kashner said.

As she was considering what her life would look like after retiring from the career she enjoyed, she began doing research. “I’ve followed the development of e-commerce for quite some time, so I knew I wanted to do something that involved e-commerce. As I began looking at options in that area, I did some research into niche areas that were exploding (in popularity) and narrowed it down to the pet niche. I wanted a niche that would be stable in the long-term but would also grow and would merge with my own interests,” she explained.

Kashner and her husband, Tim, have four children between the ages of 5 and 14. The family has a cat named Nightflurry and two goldendoodles, Tex and Taffy. (Goldendoodles are a crossbreed of a golden retriever and a poodle.) She also has experience purchasing pet supplies on e-commerce sites.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic our family was more of a physical pet store family; we purchased pet supplies from our local pet store. During the pandemic, we started to use online sites to purchase pet items. Now we do the majority of our shopping online,” she said.

And she’s not alone in that shopping habit. Kashner’s research indicated that online “big box” pet supply retailers like Chewy.com, PetSmart, and Amazon are doing well. “But as I looked at each one of the big box retailers, I found there were ways I could improve the experience,” she explained.

And that online shopping experience is the key to success according to FedEx’s “2025 E-Commerce Trends to Watch” report, which was released Feb. 18. “As digital marketplaces grow increasingly competitive, businesses that prioritize convenience, seamless returns, and personalized engagement will drive customer loyalty and long-term success. Consumers expect a hassle-free shopping experience from start to finish, with convenience and post-purchase ease emerging as what matters most in 2025,” according to the report.

Kashner said she knew she didn’t want to “build” her e-commerce store from the ground up. “There are e-commerce site developers who create and launch sites with the intent of selling them,” she said adding that MyPetSupplyWarehouse.com was purchased from a Tennessee-based entrepreneur who launched it last year. The former owner is assisting with the business transition for at least six months, according to a media release about the transaction. Kashner declined to disclose the sale price.

She said the site is pre-loaded with items the developers knew had a good sales track-record. Items are selected and shipped by a company in Florida that she said is “pretty selective.”

“It’s a brand-new store so I’ll do the marketing and build my own list of customers,” she explained, “We offer a large selection of items but also personal service. The personal service aspect is important to me; it’s what differentiates my site from the ‘big box’ sites.”

The site had a soft launch in the beginning of April, and Kashner said she plans host a grand opening for the site sometime in June. The grand opening will be announced via Facebook; she said she plans to post it on some of the Facebooks groups that are focused on pet owners.

She plans to work on the venture from a Lebanon-area office she shares with her husband. “Right now, it’s an online only retailer, but I do have a virtual office. In the future, I would like to have a physical presence in the Lebanon-area by participating in some community events,” Kashner said.