Hoping for some help with market reseach...

[photowonderbrian]

Hey there.... My name is Brian and I am brand spankin new to the board. A little about me. I'm a part time photog and have worked for an art poster publisher in the past. I love photography, art and music. So first off I'd like to say Howdy! Recently I've started new job as a sales rep for a company called Photo Wonder. This is my first sales job aside from retail that is (Wish me luck!). They’ve done well with scrap bookers and photo shops so far. Now I’ll give you one guess as to the market they’d like me to target right out of the gate.... Yep, is you fine folks in the Framing community.

So, Now that we've been introduced I’m really hoping you guys would be kind enough help me with some market research. If you could read below and let me know what you think of the services I would be immensely grateful.

We do photo restoration (make old photos look new), photo enhancement (get rid of acne, stray hairs, braces, non-flattering things) and photo to fine art conversion (change a photo to look like a water color or oil painting or put your kids in a sports collage or with a cool background). The idea is you or your customer would scan the image, you’d transfer it to us via email or ftp site and we’d apply the desired effect and send it back to you. Turn around is a guaranteed 36 hrs and less than 24 is typical. I don't have specific pricing yet but it's reasonably priced and would be something you could mark up 50% or more. It would be a white label service you would offer to your customers as an upsell or an add on. We’d provide marketing materials / posters. We can also print the finished images on canvas or felt paper if you or your customer prefers it. For info on our image services check out www.photo-wonder.com The service was cool enough to hook me in and it’s been very successful overseas. But I’d really like to know what you all think. Again, any thoughts would be most appreciated.

So, what do you think of this kind of service? Is this something you think your customers would be interested in? For me I got a little excited about the idea of taking one of my most recent photos of my grandpa who just passed and turning it into a watercolor print on felt for my ma as a Christmas gift. Restoring his WWII photos is also exciting to me. That’s my take though.
Are you set up to scan images like old photos or school photos and portraits? Would you prefer a mail in service for folks without digital images?
Can you / would you prefer to print these out in house our would you hope that we could do that as well?
Are you set up to stretch canvas prints or would you want it pre-stretched?
Any advice on what would you all recommend as far as marketing this to framers? Which services from the website do you like best and think I should highlight?

Thanks in advance for any and all your input.

Brian

 

[Mike Labbe]

Hello Brian,

Any posts of a commercial nature have to be posted in the Commercial Posts forum, so I moved this thread there for you. As a new user, you probably were not aware of this policy.

Welcome to the picture framer's grumble, Brian!

Best regards
Mike
Moderator team

 

[photowonderbrian]

Busted already???

haha, thanks for moving it Mike. Sorry about that.

 

[Mike Labbe]

No problem

 

[Puppyraiser]

Welcome to the Grumble!

The first thing I thought of is that there are already two companies who have been active in marketing similar services- Digital Custom out of Ohio, and Hollywood in California. Also a lot of framers have been getting into this sort of thing as well....

We have a local guy who does a lot of the services for us, and other than that we use Digital Custom.

Sorry to burst your bubble (or at least put a dent in it...)

 

[Mike Labbe]

My take is that this is a great product for frame shops, which drives customers to do more framing. It gets people in the store and is great for advertisement/promotions. It has done very well for us.

I'm aware of these companies, which are currently selling wholesale to frame shops: (There may be others)

Digitalcustom (built into two popular framing point of sale systems, for scanning, pricing, and transmission to their ftp server) This is the one we use the most in our shop. They provided point of sale displays, prints, sample booklets, postcards/printed material, and frequently set up at industry trade shows. The big show for our industry is at the end of January, in Las Vegas. www.wcafshow.com

Onlinephotofix We use this one in our shop, as a secondary source. We used them only a couple times (recently) when #1 didn't come through, and were very pleased with the result.

Southern Moulding Digital Imaging (built into at least one POS system)

Hollywood Photo Fix

Many frame shops are already doing business with one of the above 4, and are equipped with scanners and/or Epson printers. I'm sure they would welcome another alternative.

We have a scanner and an Epson 4880. We usually do the printing in-house, and burn a CD for the customer with their before and after images.

I highly recommend this type of service, and wish you the best!

Best regards,
Mike

 

[Dave]

Welcome to the "G", Brian.

As pointed out, there are several such services available. However, I'll betcha the majority of picture framers have not set themselves up for such services and the ones that have are like me and don't emphasize or market the capabilities well. In others words, I think the market is fairly untapped and there is room to create more consumer awareness.

How this is best accomplished is your charge. How do you get framers to see and tap the potential?

 

[JWB9999999]

So, what do you think of this kind of service? Is this something you think your customers would be interested in?

There is definitely a market for it. We see probably one customer every 2 weeks who would benefit from services like these. Of course, there are several national competitors already mentioned, and then there are local ones as well. We use someone local to do all photo restoration. If it's something they can't handle, they send it out themselves (I believe to Hollywood). We do not get involved in that at all; we send customers to them and let them deal with them directly.

Would you prefer a mail in service for folks without digital images?

Mail in service would be good to have. You mentioned WW2 photos. Customers are not likely to have digital images of these kinds of things.

Are you set up to scan images like old photos or school photos and portraits?
....
Can you / would you prefer to print these out in house our would you hope that we could do that as well?

Honestly, if I had a scanner to scan these photos, and a printer capable of printing these images, then why wouldn't I just do it all myself?

Are you set up to stretch canvas prints or would you want it pre-stretched?

I stretch everything myself. And shipping charges are generally going to be more if it's already stretched, which increases the costs for the frame shop to use your services.

Any advice on what would you all recommend as far as marketing this to framers?

Visit frame shops and find out what kind of needs they have. Attend the regional shows of PPFA, and the big framing show (WCAF) in Las Vegas.

 

[photowonderbrian]

Thanks for the warm welcom and all the fantastic info guys! I really appreciate it. I'll check out the competition and see what they're doing and see what we may do different / better. Glad to hear they're not soooooo deep into the market that there's no room left for good ol' Brian.

Ellen... Glad to know there's some competition for me out there. That means the model is sound and there's a need. I'll have to check them out for sure. Mind if I contact you once I have my game together? I'd love to chat with someone using a simular service.

Mike... I know about the Vegas show and am working on getting there. I know we also have a pos system as well as the promo materials you've mentioned. I'm new enough that I'll have to educate myself on what they are but I know they exist.

Dave... I agree, the couple shops (more to come next week for sure) I've been able to stop by have not been tapped yet. The value I saw out of the gate is we can increase your revenue for you (in your mark up) for using the service and a better end product for the customer so they're happy and tell a friend or 10.

JWB... Great info. I mentioned above the Vegas show. I'll look for the regional PPFA shows as well.

Again I can't thank you all enough for the info. If you have any other thoughts feel free to leave them. Being the new kid in town I could use all the info I can get my hands on. I hope I get a chance to work with you all. Looking forward to chatting with you on the board here.

 

[Framar]

Brian, welcome to the Grumble and remember this place is a goldmine of experts and information, not to mention a heck of a lot of nice folks. "Search" is your friend, too!

 

[wvframer]

just an opinion

We have been doing our own for a while now. We have an in-house restorer, Epson professional scanner and wide-format Epson printer. That being said, even with great equipment and talent, there was a fairly steep learning curve.

All of the previously mentioned companies do a great job. However, as far as I know, none has reps that actually call on stores and educate framers about how to set up administratively to use the service. This may be your niche.

I know that I delayed for several years because I was concerned about establishing a new service that I didn't control. I have a small customer base and my focus is on quality and personalized service. I was also concerned about accurately pricing this kind of work. I think if you spend some significant amount of time in a frame shop educating framers who are not familiar with how the service works, you might develop a good customer base.

In the past year we have drawn customers from as much as 300 miles away. And we frequently sell it as an add on at the counter. We may not be typical however, since we also serve as the storefront for a conservation studio and are becoming known for both conservation and digital restoration services. As far as I know, there is not another facility in the state offering these services direct to the public.

Good luck! Check in occasionally and let us know how it is going. This sounds like quite an adventure.