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Canon’s secret to delivering a truly unbeatable photo printing service
Canon’s secret to delivering a truly unbeatable photo printing service by Suhaib Hussain
The rise of high-quality cameras, smartphones and tablets mean we are taking higher quality photos than ever. At the same time, the pandemic and a desire to relive ‘the good old days’ has forced a sense of nostalgia1, which has driven, amongst other trends, the revival of disposable cameras. The combined impact of these trends has seen growth in the photo printing market, with analysts predicting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3% between 2018 and 2023.
Despite the growing demand, increased competition from online printing services has driven down the cost per print and afforded customers with a low cost and simple alternative to bringing cherished memories to life. With customers demanding high-quality photos on the cheap, traditional photo print shops have had to find a way to compete with online vendors while growing revenues.
Based on my experience working with photo printing experts around the world, I share three priorities for delivering a truly unbeatable photo printing service that will increase profit margins.
High quality photo printing
1. Produce truly stand out prints
For any photo printing service to be successful it needs to deliver a higher quality than customers can manage themselves at home. What often isn’t considered is the need to produce prints that beat the quality of your competition. When you can’t predict what the quality of the original photo will be, you have to have a printer that can get the best from every image.
With Canon’s experience providing printing solutions for professional photographers, we have learnt a thing or two about printing impactful photos that bring these moments to life. For the most part, this comes down to the inks used. Many of our printers, including the new PIXMA G650, use ChromaLife 100 dye-based inks for bold, vibrant photos. The PIXMA G650 has the added benefit of employing six ink tanks, including a grey and red ink, which create an incredibly wide colour gamut. The dedicated grey ink means that shaded areas of the photo are far deeper, while the red ensures that coloured areas are replicated with vivid, true to life colours.
Canon’s easy refill MEGATANK Ink Bottles
2. Quick and consistent delivery of photos
Online photo printing services have taken advantage of customer demand for convenience. With just a few clicks, they can order hundreds of photos for print. However, online photo printing services rarely compete with traditional shops when it comes to speed.
Speed isn’t just down to how quickly you can print a picture, it is also impacted by the amount of time the device is out of action. A printer that guzzles down ink will cost you money as well as time, with ink bottles needing to be replaced at regular intervals. Canon’s MegaTank ink bottles offer high yields from the PIXMA G650, printing nearly 3,800 4 x 6 photos2 from a single set of ink bottles. When you do eventually have to change the ink bottles, the simple, error and mess-free design mean users can do this in a matter of seconds. Likewise, with a replaceable maintenance cartridge, Canon’s PIXMA G650 limits downtime so your business can just carry on printing. The PIXMA G650 can also print a 4x6” photo in just 47 seconds3 and has 100 sheet rear feed for uninterrupted printing, meaning your business can tackle big orders in a matter of minutes.
Give customers multiple print options
3. Give your customers choices
Historically photos would be put into an album to preserve memories for generations. Now, customers use photos for more creative purposes - from interior design to crafts and hobbyist DIY. Giving your customers a range of options means they can print pictures to suit their needs. Canon’s PIXMA G650 gives greater creative freedom by offering borderless photo printing up to size A4 and compatibility with a broad range of media including magnetic, iron-on, restickable, matte and photo media.
Whether you have a commercial venture or you are a photography fan looking for a device you can use at home, this printer gives you a number of print choices to fill any need or situation. As a photo store, the flexibility across media types even opens up different revenue streams in terms of creating personalised t-shirts, fridge magnets or other high-value mementos.
Quality and quantity will always be essential to any business, but to do this you really need to have the right equipment to support your business. We have launched PIXMA G650 with the view to helping photo printing businesses meet the demands of customers today while taking care of their bottom line.
To find out more about PIXMA G650 please visit our website >>
1 https://www.talkwalker.com/resource/report/social-trends-talkwalker-final.pdf
2 Page yield is the estimated value based on Canon individual test method using the ISO/IEC 29103 chart and continuous printing simulation with the replacement after initial setup.
3 Photo print speed is based on default driver setting using ISO/JIS-SCID N2 standard on Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II and does not take into account data processing time on host computer.
