Kmart, Amazon and Big W cat enclosures
About 880 people a month look for a cat enclosure at Kmart, and the honest version of this page is shorter than most, because four of these retailers would not let us read their pages. What we can do is be exact about what we verified, exact about what we did not, and clear about what a cheap pen is and is not.
Prices and specifications checked 12 September 2026
Read this before you quote a price from here. Kmart, Big W, Amazon AU, Petstock and PetPost all blocked automated fetching, including the reader proxy and the rendering fetcher we use as a fallback. So there are no Amazon, Big W, Petstock or PetPost prices in our data at all, the Kmart Cat Enclosure is recorded with every field empty as a deliberate negative finding, and the one Anko figure we do carry came from a search-result snippet rather than from Kmart. Treat it as indicative and check it in store.
What we could and could not verify
| Retailer | What we hold | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Kmart | One indicative price for the Anko 8 Panel Pet Enclosure, plus one listing with every field empty | 403 to direct fetching, to the reader proxy and to the rendering fetcher |
| Big W | No price recorded anywhere | 403 to direct fetching, to the reader proxy and to the rendering fetcher |
| Amazon AU | No price recorded anywhere | Blocked automated fetching |
| Petstock and PetPost | No price recorded anywhere | Blocked automated fetching |
That is a real limitation and it is worth saying rather than papering over. Every other page on this site works by publishing figures you can check against the seller in a second tab. On these four retailers we cannot offer that, so we publish the gap instead of filling it with numbers scraped off a comparison site.
A deliberate blank row. Kmart lists a product called simply "Cat Enclosure", SKU 43552887. We recorded it with 17 of 17 fields empty rather than dropping it, because the product existing and us being unable to read it are two different facts and only one of them is visible if the row is deleted. The only description we could recover is that it has mesh walls for ventilation and is easy to set up and transport, suited to balconies, gardens or living spaces. No price, no dimensions, no mesh aperture, no height.
The one figure we have, and its caveat
| Product | Price | Assembled | Height | Floor area | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anko 8 Panel Pet Enclosure | $29 | 146 x 146 cm | 61 cm | 2.13 m2 | open, no roof |
Price and panel dimensions come from search-result snippets and a price mirror, not from Kmart's own page as read by us. Floor area is computed by us from the assembled width and depth. Kmart markets this for small pets, not specifically for cats.
It is the cheapest unit in our data by a wide margin: $29 against $249 for the next cheapest, the Coops and Cages Resort Cat Run. It is also 61cm high with no roof, which means it does not contain a cat that can jump or climb, and every healthy cat can do both. Sold as what it is, a temporary pen for a rabbit or a recovering animal under supervision, it is reasonable value. Sold to someone who searched for a cat enclosure, it is the wrong product.
Why a pen is costed separately from an enclosure
Panel pens and fabric pop-ups are kept out of the main price comparison on this site, and kept visible in their own. Mixing them would wreck the comparison, because a pen is cheap per square metre for a reason: there is almost nothing to it.
| Type | Cheapest example we hold | Per m2 | Roof | Height |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panel pen | Anko 8 Panel Pet Enclosure | $13.62 | open, no roof | 61 cm |
| Framed enclosure | Catnets Quad 3.6m x 3.6m Portable Cat Enclosure | $86.42 | netted roof, part of the one-piece net; separate UV50+ waterproof cover and shade sail sold separately | 180 cm |
A framed enclosure costs roughly 6.3 times as much per square metre of floor. That multiple is the roof, the weatherproofing, the height and the structure, and it is the whole difference between a thing that holds a cat outdoors unattended and a thing that holds a cat while you watch it.
Only one panel or pop-up unit survived our sourcing at all, which is its own small finding: this end of the market is sold through retailers that do not publish specifications in a form anyone can check.
What a sixty dollar tent does in a Queensland summer
Be concrete about this, because the marketing photography never is. A fabric pop-up is a polyester or nylon shell on fibreglass or steel hoops, with mesh windows, pegged down at the corners. In an Australian backyard the three things that happen to it are sun, wind and claws.
- Sun. Not one of the products in our data publishes a UV rating for its fabric, and no seller anywhere publishes a UPF or UV-block figure for shade. A dark pop-up in full summer sun is also a heat trap: it has no ventilated roof, no shaded zone the cat can choose, and nowhere for hot air to leave. A cat shut in one on a 35 degree day in Brisbane has no way out of the heat.
- Wind. Nobody in this category publishes a wind rating at all, not one product in our whole dataset, and a pegged fabric shell is the most wind-sensitive thing in it. Empty, it becomes a kite. Occupied, the cat is inside the kite.
- Claws. Fabric mesh is a few grams per square metre of polyester. A bored cat working the same corner for a week will get through it, and there is no published warranty on any of these units to appeal to when it does.
None of that makes a pop-up useless. It makes it a supervised, temporary, shaded-position product: a camping trip, a rental where nothing can be fixed to the wall, an hour on the grass while you garden. It is not overnight containment and it is not a substitute for a structure. Our portable and pop-up page covers where it does work.
What the next step up costs
The cheapest framed, roofed enclosure we could price anywhere in Australia is the Catnets Trek Portable Cat Enclosure 1.78m at $260 for 1.6 m2, and freight is extra and unpublished on almost every seller in this market. That is the real floor of the category, and it is a long way above a discount-store pen. If it is out of reach today, the costed DIY build is the other honest route, and netting an existing structure is usually cheaper again per square metre than any finished unit.
Before spending anything, check what your council actually requires. A rule that says the cat must stay on your property is not satisfied by a pen the cat can step over: the council register sets out which councils impose a duty and under which instrument.
Common questions
Does Kmart sell a cat enclosure?
Kmart lists a product called simply "Cat Enclosure" (SKU 43552887) and the Anko 8 Panel Pet Enclosure under its Anko house brand. We could not read either page: kmart.com.au returns 403 to direct fetching, to the reader proxy and to the rendering fetcher we use. So we publish no price and no dimension for the Cat Enclosure at all, and the Anko figures below came from search-result snippets rather than from Kmart's own page. Check the price in store or in your own browser before relying on it.
Is a panel pen the same thing as a cat enclosure?
No, and the price gap is the giveaway. The Anko 8 Panel Pet Enclosure works out at about $13.62 per square metre against $86.42 for the cheapest framed enclosure we could cost, roughly 6.3 times less. It buys floor area and nothing else: no roof, no weatherproofing, and 61cm of height. A cat that can jump a kitchen bench is not contained by it.
How long does a fabric pop-up last outdoors in Australia?
Nobody publishes a figure, which is itself the answer. Not one product in our data carries a UV rating for its fabric or its structure, and the only quantified weathering test published by any seller in this category is a netting strength-retention result from a different brand. A fabric pop-up left in full Queensland or Northern Territory sun is an undated purchase: you will find out when it tears.
What does Big W charge?
We do not know and we will not guess. bigw.com.au returns 403 to direct fetching, to the reader proxy and to the rendering fetcher, so there is no Big W price anywhere in our data. We can say that at least one enclosure we hold a direct-seller price for is also listed at Big W, which means a price comparison is possible in a browser, just not from here.