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PRESS RELEASE from Fujifilm UK - Photofinishing Division
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Release Date: 3 December 2009
Image Downloads: www.newsfeeduk.com/fujifilm
FDIS member uses photo gifts to fight downturn
Fujifilm Digital Imaging Service (FDIS) member, Knaresborough Photo Centre near Harrogate in North Yorkshire, has analysed the short-term effects of economic down-turn on its trade, and plans to counter them with photo gifts by Christmas.
Knaresborough Photo Centre is run by business partners Philip Tennant and Judith Chapman. It makes photo prints on a Fujifilm Frontier 340 digital minilab connected to two Fujifilm SmartPix photo kiosks. Large format printing is done on a Fujifilm Epson 7800 GreenBox solution. Canvas prints and posters are popular products from this, and Knaresborough Photo offers mounting and framing services too.
Philip and Judith like to move with the times, and over the past couple of years have also developed a line in photo gifts, originally by using an out-lab service. Judith says: "We first started to do photo gifts because our customers started to ask for them, and we saw we had no major competition for it in the town. That was with an out-lab service."
They felt the need to take gifting to the next level, in time to benefit from the holiday trading coming at the end of this year. To improve quality assurance and margin, Philip and Judith decided to bring gift production in-store. When Peter Wigington, Fujifilm’s business manager for the FDIS group, visited them recently, he was impressed with what he saw: "Philip and Judith have invested in a hot press and a mug press, and have started to buy their own supplies to make photo gifts. Their merchandising is eye-catching and I'm delighted to see the till ringing as a result!"
50% more profit
Judith tells us: "We weren’t getting the quality of service and product we needed for our customers from the out-lab. And there’s a margin advantage in producing photo gifts in-house. We still sell them at what we used to sell them at, but obviously we don’t have the out-lab costs, so it’s more profitable, probably about 50% more profitable. We do T-shirts, calendars, teddy bears, mugs, trays, mouse mats, place mats, coasters, sun screens, purses, mobile-phone holders, door hangers, name tags, luggage tags, photo jigsaws: the list goes on!"
Merchandising and marketing
When the business brought gift fulfilment in-house, it also intensified its merchandising and marketing of gifts. Judith explained: "We’ve really started to sell it heavily with window displays, promotions, displays in-store, etc. We’ve produced our own T-shirts to wear. And we tell everyone about it that comes through the door. We show them and try to encourage them to do it."
"We live in a very touristy town so we’ve taken a lot of scenes of the town and put them on gifts, which we’re selling as well. Surprisingly, they’ve turned out to be even more popular with locals than tourists, as gifts for friends and family who’ve moved away."
Knaresborough Photo Centre has been supported and inspired by the marketing initiatives that are provided to Fujifilm Digital Imaging Service members. The group is primarily a retail marketing support program.
Judith says: "FDIS do the reward cards and the gift vouchers. People looking for gifts buy the vouchers and get the reward cards, which we hope means they’ll use us again, so FDIS marketing builds an on-going relationship."
Analysis to combat recession
Judith feels she first started to feel the effects of the recession towards the end of summer. She says: “We noticed a downturn in trade. I would say we had fewer customers coming through the door, but the one’s who kept coming were the higher value customer.”
With a customer profile like this, Philip and Judith saw they could make up for lost custom simply by selling higher margin goods and services. Bringing photo gift fulfilment in-store would increase margin. Sales of the gifts could be increased by intensifying in-store merchandising, and by taking advantage of FDIS marketing support.
Getting the timing right
The timing of Knaresborough Photo Centre’s initiatives is significant. Philip and Judith are calculating to use the Christmas period to pull things round for them.
Judith says: "With the gifts, we needed to learn to do them ourselves, in time to promote it and get the marketing out there before Christmas. We needed enough time to become competent in what we did, so the quality would always be there, before the Christmas rush. It’s crucial to deliver better quality than we got from the out-lab."
Philip and Judith must have been glad they had already begun to adapt to the market changes when they noticed what Judith thinks is a second effect of the recession. She believes their customers have choked spending in the run-up to Christmas, in order to hold back more to spend on the holiday shopping.
She says: "I think people are spending marginally less. In September and October I think people hung on to their money ready for the Christmas spend. We’re not doing too badly now it’s November. But they’re buying slightly lower margin stuff. Marketing our photo gifts helps to push people back to higher margin things."
FDIS provides regular promotional material throughout the year which includes a product guide mailer delivered twice a year in the catchment areas of group members. A Christmas leaflet, featuring the range of photo gifts, was distributed recently to over 2,500 homes in the Knaresborough area.
FDIS supports owners nationwide to act locally
Peter Wigington, says: "Knaresborough Photo Centre exemplifies the ethos of the FDIS group, which values the ability of independent owner-managers to adapt their stores precisely to local conditions, and react very rapidly to market changes. We believe these qualities are some of the things that help the group as a whole to be more robust and resilient than centrally directed multiples."
He continued: "Phil and Judith are really benefiting from the boost to their turnover by producing photo gifts in-house. For a minimal investment any FDIS member can do the same."
For more information about FDIS marketing support, contact Peter Wigington on 01234 572 138 or email, fisdigital@fuji.co.uk
ENDS.
* Note: this news release is issued electronically and will not be duplicated with a posted copy
About Fujifilm
Fujifilm is a global leader in imaging technology, products and services including digital cameras, photofinishing, digital storage and recording media, consumer and professional film, motion picture film, professional video, printing systems, medical imaging, office technology, flat panel displays and graphic arts. The company employs more than 73,000 people worldwide, with 178 subsidiaries stretching across four continents.
Uniquely placed to be a market leader in digital imaging, Fujifilm develops and manufactures its own sensors, lenses and processing technology. In addition to its production plants and R&D operations in Japan, the company has key manufacturing facilities in Europe and the USA for core products such as colour film, colour paper, single use cameras and CTP printing plates, and has further factories in Brazil and China. It has a global turnover in excess of £13 billion.
In the UK, Fujifilm has been supplying the imaging, printing and graphics industries, as well as consumers, professional and enthusiast photographers, with high quality, innovative products and services for over 25 years. Fujifilm UK currently employs more than 450 people and has become one of the country's most popular photographic and imaging brands.
© 2009, Fujifilm UK Ltd. Specifications are subject to change.
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Fujifilm (UK) Ltd
Unit 10A
St Martins Business Centre
St Martins Way
Bedfordshire MK42 0LF
Tel: 01234 572144
E-mail: minilabs@fuji.co.uk
Web: www.fujifilm.co.uk/minilabs
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Written and distributed by WPS Media
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