ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Bartell Drugs has deployed a new suite of integrated retail photo merchandising services developed by Eastman Kodak Co. and LifePics.
Kodak said Friday that the new services enable photo retailers to leverage their current fleets of Kodak photofinishing equipment to quickly and cost effectively enter the net-to-retail photo fulfillment business, as well as offer consumers the convenience of ordering photos online and picking them up the same day at the retail store.
The first two services, private-labeled net-to-retail photo order fulfillment and in-store photo specialty gift catalog ordering, have been rolled out to U.S. retailers.
Seattle-based Bartell, with 58 drug stores in the Puget Sound area, has implemented the Kodak and LifePics service and seen rapid results, according to Kodak.
"We saw significant uptake in orders after we implemented the net-to-retail service," Howie Cohen, general merchandise buyer at Bartell, said in a statement. "Sales of premium products like photo books have been particularly strong since we established a web presence."
In September, Bartell announced that it had deployed new Web-based premium photo products after a chainwide conversion to the Kodak Adaptive Picture Exchange (APEX) platform.
The new net-to-retail order fulfillment solution uses LifePics-enabled, private-label photo merchandising websites and Kodak’s net-to-retail connectivity installed on a Kodak Picture Kiosk or Kodak APEX minilab to fulfill online orders in-store for products such as photo books, greeting cards, calendars collages and photos.
"Consumers want the ability to place orders online and pick them up in-store," stated Larry Trevarthen, vice president of worldwide marketing, retail systems solutions, at Kodak. "LifePics’ market-leading web-based photo services running on Kodak’s retail systems is an efficient, cost-effective way for retailers to deliver the value and convenience of net-to-retail photo ordering for consumers."
Meanwhile, the join net-to-retail photo order fulfillment service provides an alternative to web-based photo services that fulfill orders off-site and ship to home, often taking several days, according to Kodak and LifePics. "The ability to fulfill same-day orders is especially important during holiday seasons, when retailers can offer online order service up to the holiday, providing retailers with an opportunity to increase photo revenue," Trevarthen noted.
The net-to-retail order fulfillment path for photo merchandise is growing steadily in the United States, Kodak and LifePics pointed out. According to InfoTrends, more than 21% of printed photo merchandise products ordered online this year will be fulfilled in a retail store, and that percentage is expected to reach 28% by 2015.
In addition, Kodak and LifePics are offering a new photo gift ordering service. Leveraging LifePics’ specialty photo gift catalog, the services lets retailers to offer a variety of specialty photo gifts that can be ordered from a Kodak Picture Kiosk in-store and fulfilled by a LifePics central lab partner. Gift items include mouse pads, mugs, sweatshirts, T-shirts, photo buttons, playing cards, puzzles, pillow cases, blankets and ornaments. Consumers can also order canvas prints and have their photos restored and colorized.
"One of the best ways to increase traffic to the in-store photo center is to offer new, compelling photo products that can be ordered and fulfilled quickly and easily," commented Vahe Christianian, vice president of sales and business development at Boulder, Colo.-based LifePics.
