Retail Watch : Customize for Competitive Advantage
A creative professional can give your store an edge your competition can’t match.
August 2009 By Mark Von Keszyckin an age when seemingly anything that can be digitized can also be commoditized, dedicated photo-imagers must continually seek ways to stand apart from their competition. Mass merchants and warehouse clubs now offer photo gifts, poster prints, DVD transfers and many other products and services once exclusive to photo specialty dealers. Online services offer ever-greater opportunities to create custom products, and all feel compelled to compete on the basis of price, putting margin pressure on one of the last bastions of profitability for imaging specialists.
Where to look, then, for the profit dollars necessary to keep the doors open and employees' families fed? Many independent imagers have found that a single key individual can provide a lasting competitive advantage that mass-market and online rivals simply cannot match. Much like a skilled lab tech can be the difference between camera-store quality and mass-mediocrity, a trained in-house creative professional can also be a difference-maker for 21st-Century digital imaging service providers.
By this I mean not just someone with basic Photoshop skills and good aesthetic sense. The businesses that have found the greatest success credit a trained graphic designer, specifically recruited and hired to add a professional touch to their creative output. Yes, this person costs more than most other staff, but many retailers have found that he/she enables them to offer unique services and total customization that set their stores apart.
If It's Unique, They Will Come
Despite all their other options, customers still come to independent photo specialists for several important reasons. They are almost always seeking quality, but often also something special, a unique way to preserve or present their memories that they can't find anywhere else. All this, plus individualized service from someone who will listen to them, understand their needs, and translate their requests into finished products that exceed their expectations. In many cases, they are specifically looking to get away from the limited, cookie-cutter solutions available online and elsewhere. They want something created just for them, and many are willing to pay handsomely for the service if it is presented properly and the final output is truly special in every way.
Delivering this level of customization is not without its pitfalls, however. First, it requires direct interaction between the customer and the artist who will actually do the work. Too much is lost in translation between the customer, an order-taker at the counter, and the technician for a two-step process to be effective. This means that in addition to their creative talents, the technician must also have the listening and presentation skills necessary to interact with and sell to the public.
