It is interesting to see more and more Graphic Arts companies entering the photo space with niche and creative products. I wonder if the Traditional Photo labs and Photo finishers will start to connect with their audience in the same way or will they carry on producing good quality conservative products?
In just the last 10 years, several Graphic Arts Giants have appeared from nowhere and continue to double in size year on year. Vistaprint, Consolidated Graphics and Moo from the UK.
All of them with CEOs & Founders who employ young graduates with no knowledge of the printing industry. Their marketing messages are almost identical— Innovative short run printed products for small businesses or consumers online.
Richard Moross the founder of Moo started off with an idea to promote a hybrid social networking environment that was online and offline. The little Moo photo cards could be given to your friends and colleagues to encourage them to communicate through the site.
However trying to set up your own social networking environment was slow, so Richard teamed up with Flickr in September 2006 and the business almost doubled over night.
The Moo cards have now matured as a product and offer designers, illustrators, photographers and consumers a neat way of promoting their brand using these photo business cards.
Moo now employs 50 people worldwide and operates in North America, Western Europe and the UK producing millions of cards per month.
Check out their website www.moo.com
I wonder if or when the Photo Labs or Photo finishers will follow, or will Graphic Arts entrepreneurs grab this from them? I guess the consumer will decide, what do you think…?
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6 Comments
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The print e-commerce business models have been very successful and, as you note, more often than not are filled with techies instead of printers.
Having ordered Moo cards, I can attest that the selling points are the size and personalization instead of the printing itself (although the printing is good). The cards can be used for Tweetups, scrap books/collages, and as business cards, to name a few.
The business model of print e-commerce providers, like Moo, completely bypass photo labs and finishers (Flickr>Moo>USPS). For this reason, along with transactions based on the consumers terms, photo labs and finishers have a difficult task to dethrone the new graphic arts giants.
Hey Ryan
Thanks for your comments, do you think people are using Moo cards instead of photos?
Is it the versatility of this application that makes it more appealing rather than a photo?
Ursula
As a part-time professional photographer, I learned about Moo appx a year ago (just before they added a location in the US) and ordered up 500 cards with some of my favorite shots on them. The quality is outstanding! What a great idea! Moo really fills this niche market very well.