I’d appreciate newsagents with experience with photo kiosks to share their experience here. Which kiosk do you have? Are you happy? What are the costs?
I have one but I have stopped using it for a while. It came with the business when I bought it six years ago and I own it outright. It has two printers to enable photos to be printed as either 5 x 7 or 6 x 4 format.
The first couple of years were great and the unit more than paid itself off in that time however the entry into this market by Harvey Norman, Bing Lee etc created the impression to consumers that 15 or 10 cents per print is the “right” price one should pay and anything higher is a rip off.
I found the cost of media and ribbon refills to be too high to compete with the majors even when I bought ten cases of paper and ribbon. I am in a regional tourist town and once the majors started advertising their give away rates I found more tourists and locals saving it for when they went to one of these retailers instead of getting the prints from me. Speaking with other newsagents I hear same story. It’s a shame as the kiosk can do a lot more than simply print as standard photo. It can do calendars, frames, crop etc, etc.
If the price of the media came down considerably. I would love to see what rates we could get if GNS were able to negotiate the economies of scale. I find it be an excellent fit for a Newsagency but the costs prevent me from being competitive.
My take on some of the rent/lease options available in the past I am not sure the volume of traffic would make it worthwhile for Newsagents though I would love to be corrected.
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Vicki
I agree with everything Angelo said. We are in the same position with our machine. Think it will be going on ebay or gumtree soon!
I have one but I have stopped using it for a while. It came with the business when I bought it six years ago and I own it outright. It has two printers to enable photos to be printed as either 5 x 7 or 6 x 4 format.
The first couple of years were great and the unit more than paid itself off in that time however the entry into this market by Harvey Norman, Bing Lee etc created the impression to consumers that 15 or 10 cents per print is the “right” price one should pay and anything higher is a rip off.
I found the cost of media and ribbon refills to be too high to compete with the majors even when I bought ten cases of paper and ribbon. I am in a regional tourist town and once the majors started advertising their give away rates I found more tourists and locals saving it for when they went to one of these retailers instead of getting the prints from me. Speaking with other newsagents I hear same story. It’s a shame as the kiosk can do a lot more than simply print as standard photo. It can do calendars, frames, crop etc, etc.
If the price of the media came down considerably. I would love to see what rates we could get if GNS were able to negotiate the economies of scale. I find it be an excellent fit for a Newsagency but the costs prevent me from being competitive.
My take on some of the rent/lease options available in the past I am not sure the volume of traffic would make it worthwhile for Newsagents though I would love to be corrected.
I agree with everything Angelo said. We are in the same position with our machine. Think it will be going on ebay or gumtree soon!