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PMA 2006 wrap-up

The Photo Marketing Association's 2006 meeting was filled with new ideas and announcements. Here's a look at some of the big news from the self-service community.

March 19, 2006

The Photo Marketing Association's 2006 meeting was filled with new ideas and announcements. Here's a look at some of the big news from the self-service community.

Photo kiosk PMA Vendor Session looks at new themes

Take a heaping handful of kiosk manufacturers, throw in a bunch of questions. Now what's that the recipe for? The answer was the Vendor Session on kiosks Monday morning at PMA 2006.

Moderator Phil Gresham of Fotofast, Brisbane, Australia, a store with 18 kiosks, moderated the session, introducing a series of questions to Steve Delnawaz, Whitetech Software Solutions; Kieran Lynch, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Inc.; Nicolas Series, KIS Photo Me; Nicki Zongrone, Eastman Kodak Co.; David Oles, Pixel Magic; and Richard Glomb, Lucidiom Inc.

The speakers hammered away at a number of themes, including the need to customize kiosk capabilities to suit a retailer's target market, buying modular systems that can be upgraded, how promoting larger print sizes also increases 4-by-6 print sales, how going after scrapbookers can actually slow down kiosk use and output (making a kiosk dedicated to scrapbookers an interesting approach), and finding attractive alternative services.

PMA Show Floor encounter holds promise for future

John and Suzanne Mullins, right, Ultra Photo, Bay City, Texas, talk with Nathan Wolinsky, FOTOEntertainment, Tuxedo, N.Y., in the DIMA Kiosk Shoot-Out pavilion at PMA 2006.

John and Suzanne Mullins first met Nathan Wolinsky at about 2:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon. The encounter was pure serendipity. The Mullinses of Ultra Photo, Bay City, Texas, were looking for a way to compete in their local market increasingly dominated by some big name, non-photo outlets.

When we encountered them, they had found a couple of the kiosks of interest that might help them make a kiosk center. John Mullins said having his wife with him was key in helping them choose which kiosks would attract their target market: women.

With roll volumes down, "the only way to get the business back is with kiosks. We have to be more service oriented [than the mass marketers] and be more female friendly."

Enter Wolinsky, FOTOEntertainment LLC, Tuxedo, N.Y., who just happened to be walking by and overheard their comments. What ensued was a dialogue between the three that lasted for about half an hour.

Wolinsky's business plan has been to place kiosks on college campuses having large resident student populations. Currently, he has five kiosks running on five university campuses in various parts of the United States. These resident students, he believes, have a couple of credit cards and expendable dollars. He's also found that faculty members are big kiosk users as well - they're moms and dads.

All of his kiosk transactions are by credit card, with the kiosks located in college bookstores or in other campus businesses. Most prints are 4-by-6, but one campus is delivering orders for larger prints.

But the real story was the interaction between the Mullinses and Wolinsky, exchanging ideas, suggestions, recommendations and advice, with a solid mixture of experiences thrown in. Wolinsky was hot on some of the ideas he had picked up from the mini breakfast sessions at this and other PMA Shows, and both were adamant about the value of being able to "kick" a few "tires" on the Show Floor.

And then, as quickly as it had started, their time together was over, business cards were exchanged, and it was back to prowling the show floor in search of more ideas.

- By Don Long, PMA senior editor

Several PMA 2006 exhibitors showed new photo kiosks for retail environments this year. A number of the units being introduced offer faster printing speeds and option for making photo gifts.

The Digital Picture System 900 (DPS 900) from Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y., which combines a 35 mm film scanner with Kodak's Picture Kiosk G4 platform and award-winning Kodak 6850 and 8800 thermal photo printers. Compared with a digital minilab, the unit has a significantly lower total cost of ownership, including lower capital investment and labor costs, Kodak says. Additionally, it is much easier to operate and maintain, and offers modularity and flexibility to allow far more options for the retailer, including the ability to print from both digital and film files, and to create high margin products such as CDs and enlargements.

The PhotoGift kiosk from Pixology plc, Surrey, United Kingdom, which allows customers to create personalized gifts from their photos while in-store, is now available to U.S. retailers. Orders will be sent digitally via Pixology's servers for fulfillment by Photo This. Customers will be able to preview gift orders before choosing from a wide range of gifts including: puzzles, posters, greetings cards, t-shirts, mugs and mousemats. Products can be collected in-store or delivered to a customer's home or specified address within 10 days.

Noritsu America Corp., Buena Park, Calif., unveiled the newest addition to its lineup of Consumer Terminals, the CT-SL. The CT-SL supports all popular media and comes with Noritsu CT-X Software preinstalled. Features such as automatic red-eye removal, filters, color correction, zoom and crop are available right out of the box. The CT-SL utilizes a responsive 15-inch LCD touchscreen with angle adjustment, thermal receipt printer and has built-in wireless support using Bluetooth.

KIS Photo-Me International, Echirolles, France, demonstrated the new KIS 24/7 PHOTO, a modular anti-vandal photo-ordering kiosk that operates remotely indoors or outdoors to provide consumers with access any time of the day or night. The 24/7 PHOTO kiosk, recessed into a wall similar to a bank automated teller machine, allows consumers to obtain their pictures from a broad range of digital sources, the company said. The result is an extremely accessible, efficient, low-maintenance "profit center" that literally extends the reach of the owner's retail photo business.

Also on display was the KIS Intuitive Time System (ITS), which predicts and announces to customers the shortest delivery time for their picture order, before they place it at the counter or kiosk. The system consists of a workstation with a software program, a wall-mounted display and barcode readers, all linked to KIS minilabs and kiosks. The ITS maps out the entire image workflow for both the consumer and system operator, and allows remote management oversight. Delivery times, order by order, are shown on the wall display in real time. The system's three barcode readers track the physical progress made by an order within the process.

Sony Electronics Inc., San Diego, Calif., unveiled the SnapLab digital photofinishing system, billed as an "on-location photo lab" for both commercial and home use. Equipped with a user-friendly 8-inch, 640-by-480 dot resolution LCD touchscreen, the SnapLab features integrated Memory Stick, CompactFlash, SD, SmartMedia, xD and USB slots. Users simply insert their digital media and use its LCD touchscreen keys to operate. A newly developed thermal print mechanism enables the printer to function at high speeds, regardless of print size.

Whitech USA, West New York, N.J., announced the Standard Series, offering streamlined functionality at an economical price. Built on a proven user interface, these models guide the customer through order selection with both on-screen and voice prompts, and encourage selection of multiple sizes as well as enhanced features such as custom frames, templates and calendars.

The Profit Center Series provides wide-ranging reporting functionality on products and services, allowing the retailer to customize offerings by class of customer, club status, membership product classification, or even by individual customer, whether they are in the store or connecting to the retailer on-line. The Profit Center series expands on the unlimited print sizes and myriad services of the Standard Series by adding fully customizable collage prints, scrap booking, and novelty gift items.

Also new this year is the Photo.Teller 1600, available in both the Standard Series and the Profit Center Series. This model offers retailers an affordable option for either entering or expanding their photo kiosk offerings while maintaining a budget.

Last year, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Inc., Valhalla, N.Y., introduced its GetPix Photo Center, a line of digital photo kiosk solutions developed to bring retailers more options and flexibility to grow their photo developing businesses. At PMA 2006, Fujifilm introduced enhanced, higher speed and higher capacity dye-sublimation printers to offer consumers the ability to print their digital images from a GetPix Kiosk VP3 in as little as four seconds per 4-by-6-inch print. Fujifilm's GetPix Photo Center line boasts an intuitive, tilting touch screen terminal and a unique media drive system designed by a team of IBM and Fujifilm industrial engineers and ergonomic specialists in order to offer retailers cost-effective expandability and maintenance, particularly as new storage media formats become available.

The Photo Imaging Division of Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Irvine, Calif., USA, launched the DPS Kiosk 7000, a user-friendly, self-service instant digital photo processing system that can be situated on a countertop or on an optional pedestal base. The user-friendly 17-inch touchscreen menu enables customers to easily utilize powerful editing, manipulation and enhancement features.

These dispatches were culled from PMA's daily coverage of the Photo Marketing Association 2006 event, and are reprinted with their kind permission.