Pic Biz Retail Look Book

Retailers Present Their Own Photo Book of Profitable IdeasLet’s Take a Look…

n an industry that is all about telling stories in the form of picture books, we thought we'd borrow a page, so to speak, from that mission statement and put together a little visual tale of our own.

With the Picture Business Retail Look Book, we have gathered stories and pictures from retailers around the country that focus on what they do best—catering to their customers. For some it's all about merchandising, while others may excel at promotion. You'll see that great customer service still reigns supreme as well. In many instances it's technology from the manufacturer that spells profit for the dealer. You'll see all that and a bit more on the pages that follow.

While putting this issue together, one thing became abundantly clear and that's the already well-known fact that there are many facets to correctly running a retail business and it's important to tend to all of them. Also, it's sometimes the simplest ideas that yield the greatest gain, so you don't always have to shoot for the stars with your thinking.

So then, have a "Look" and hopefully you'll take away a few ideas that you too can implement.

Bartell Drugs

Howie Cohen is the General Merchandise Buyer of The Bartell Drug Company, a chain of stores located in the state of Washington. "We've have had great success with Kodak's Apex as it has helped our business by letting us offer all of the traditional skus that a wet lab has, including slim line greeting cards, CDs, 8x10s, and 4x6 prints in glossy and lustre finish at a fraction of the cost of a new wet lab. The other big benefit for us is the savings in labor on maintenance of the machines. Our G4x kiosks let us offer instant in-store photo books with our Unibind binding and also instant Picture Movie DVDs. We try to differentiate in store with photo gifts and knowledgeable store clerks that can make them."

Crown Camera Touts YouTube

Redding, Calif., Crown Camera has always tried to embrace new technologies, and this includes social media outlets Facebook, Twitter and most recently YouTube. Store Manager, Frank Tona, took a 4x4 flip book from Lucidiom that walks consumers through the company's white-label photo site, Photo Finale Web, and converted it into a YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlEMlmm1zqE&fmt=18. Now his customers can learn more about the Web site's features—RSS, sharing, editing, member benefits, etc.—simply by watching a brief video.