Imagine a camera store that instead of just selling cameras, accessories, film processing and prints also stages birthday parties and lets camera-phone owners view and print their phone shots in the store.
Sound far-fetched? Maybe so, but the folks at the Photo Marketing Association International want retailers to think long and hard about shifting from the traditional role of hardware-type vendors to becoming a lifestyle store that appeals to soccer moms.
The PMAI, at its annual convention in Orlando, Fla., set up a concept store to demonstrate a different way of retailing.
The nearly 4,000 camera- specialty stores have thrived in past years by selling hot digital cameras to consumers who were either replacing their film models or upgrading to a second or third camera.
But the party is over. Intense competition, especially online, has brought the average price of a 4-by-6 print to 20 cents, the PMAI says, and the profit margin on prints is getting smaller. Digital-camera sales will peak by this summer, says Ed Lee, an analyst with market research firm InfoTrends.
“Retailers have to redefine what a camera store is,” says analyst Ron Glaz at technology research firm IDC. “If they continue to just focus on prints, they won’t be around in two years.”
With camera sales declining, retailers can no longer just focus on men by selling hardware, says Glenn Omura, who teaches marketing at Michigan State University. He helped design the concept store for the PMAI.
“Why not throw a birthday party at the store and have the kids design photo magnets for the refrigerator?” he says. “The idea is to connect with moms and show them how to do more than just prints.”
Customers want to make scrapbooks, posters, big prints and photo albums, and retailers need to do a better job of showing them how, Omura says.
Hewlett-Packard pushed that concept with a self-contained $50,000 kiosk that fits in a store and enables customers to make books, calendars, greeting cards and other photo gifts via HP printers.
Such products “are all available online now, but they’re not being used widely by the mass market,” says Kalle Marsal, HP’s director of marketing for the photography division.
Snapfish – HP’s online photo site that sells prints, calendars and cards – ranks behind No. 2 Shutterfly and No. 1-ranked Kodak Gallery, according to Info Trends.
