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Total customer experience dictates how and when customers print photos


Johannesburg, 06 Nov 2006

With the explosive growth taking place in the digital photography space - driven to a great degree by the prevalence of affordable digital cameras and the increase in quality of camera-equipped mobile phones - a battle is raging between the specialised photo printer vendors and the conventional photo-developing outlets for the lion's share of the customer's spend.

"While at the moment, it seems that these two verticals are relatively close for the greater percentage of the customer's pocket, there's a strong indication that the printer market is poised to take the lead before the end of the year," says Anton Herbst, managing director of ACT.

"The reason for this is simple," he continues. "The printer vendors have realised that achieving success in the digital photo printing market takes a couple of things. These include an easy to understand costing model, a quality product that's both easy to use and delivers quality results, as well as a deep penetration into the retail outlets these customers frequent.

"Together these variables translate into a concept called 'total customer experience'," Herbst explains. "Quite simply, the better a customer's total experience, the more likely vendors, resellers and distributors such as ourselves are to be successful in pushing the photo-printer model in the market," he says.

Herbst says the focus print vendors are beginning to place on 'cost per photo' is the first step in reaching this desirable 'total customer experience' level.

"If a vendor or retailer can prove without a doubt that printing photographs on a specialised photo printer is not only as cost-effective but that the quality derived rivals, if it doesn't exceed the quality delivered by a photo lab, they have the battle won," he opines.

"In reality, you cannot compare the convenience of producing hard copies of your photographs at home, to the inconvenience of driving to a photo lab to drop your images off in digital format, and then still having to collect them once the prints are complete. From a pure convenience point of view, the printer wins," Herbst maintains.

He says the key manner in delivering this cost-per-photo message right now is through bundling cartridges and photo stock that have just enough ink and paper to print a specific number of photographs, for example, 70 or 100 photos.

"By taking the price of such a bundle and dividing that by the number of photographs it allows the customer to print, the man in the street can easily calculate what the cost per photo would be. The print vendors are currently working hard to drive this cost to a point that's well below that offered by a conventional photo lab, " he says.

"Hand in hand with the adjustment of pricing models however," Herbst continues, "comes education.

"If customers continue to buy the cheapest model of colour inkjet on the market, this new model printer vendors are putting in place will be a failure. Quite simply, consumers must realise there's a valid reason one inkjet printer costs substantially less than another - that reason is generally quality and functionality.

"All customers need to be shown by the representatives in a retail-store, exactly what the difference in quality is. For the generally small price differential between a mediocre quality result and an impressive one, chances are the customer will have the foresight to choose the printer capable of delivering the latter," he continues.

"Combine this high quality printer with a competitive cost-per-page and higher level of convenience and the printer market has a truly compelling value proposition to offer the digital photographer. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts and what the dominant trends are a year from now," Herbst concludes.

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Advanced Channel Technologies

Advanced Channel Technologies (Pty) Ltd (ACT) is a focused supplier of high quality IT consumables and printers.

The company's products and value-added services support cost-effective print management, risk management in the data storage arena, and quality output to all media formats, including speciality papers.

ACT is committed to the delivery of world-class products and services to a national network of premier business partners and resellers who address the entire potential market for IT consumables in SA and neighbouring states in the SADC region.

The company operates as a fully-authorised supplier of a comprehensive range of high quality products that are manufactured by the world's premier brand name vendors.

Editorial contacts

Deborah O'Connell
eCommunications
(083) 732 0634
act@puruma.com
Amelia van Rheede
Advanced Channel Technology
(011) 695 1640
ameliar@act3.co.za