Photographic processing – remember that expression? Wikipedia defines this as the processes by which photographic film or paper is treated after photographic exposure in order to produce the desired negative or positive image. Photographic processing transforms the latent image into a visible image, makes the visible image permanent, and it renders the finished visible image insensitive to light.
What they don’t add to that definition is that this process essentially carried the retail photo business for years. And when the concept of the one-hour minilab hit the scene in the 1980s, the lid came off. Soon after this the term “cash cow” became a familiar one for those in this business – and that it most certainly had become.
Fast forward to the mid to late 1990s and the first consumer-level digital cameras began surfacing, and suddenly consumers could actually see the images they had just captured on the back of the camera via an LCD display. Not long after that, the home printing market began offering those same folks the ability to make their prints at home and that market exploded.
Once we all woke up in the new millennium, entirely new printing, sharing and archiving habits had formed when it came to consumer memory keeping.
What had happened may be summed up by what consumer Carrie Dooley had to say recently.
“A certain amount of mystery was gone from the equation when I could see the image right after I captured it,” began Dooley, a Birmingham, AL, mother of two. “Then when I started uploading and looking at the images on my computer and setting up online accounts for people to come view them, that became the new paradigm. The printed image just kept getting pushed further down the priority line.”
As a Gen X mother, Dooley perfectly represents “Jennifer” – the demographic PMA targeted a few years ago as the one at the top of the imaging retail pecking order.
While Dooley’s story doesn’t exactly paint a rosy picture of the future of the retail print market, many analysts feel it’s an important one to continue to follow.
“The key here is she still wants to take and share her pictures with family and friends,” explained retail analyst Lauren Sosik. “This fact alone is great news and it simply represents a customer that is moving in new directions. Imaging retail shouldn’t look at her as a customer they are losing. They should be looking at her as a customer that is changing and has new needs.”
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