ScanMyPhotos pulls something out of the box

Market Update

Since its launch in 1990, ScanMyPhotos has grown out of a boutique retail photo centre in California to become a worldwide online photo ordering service. PIN editor Barrie Parsons spoke to ScanMyPhotos founder Mitch Goldstone prior to his visit to Australia in February.

It's a simple enough business model - provide consumers with a quick, easy and affordable way of converting hundreds of stored photographs into a digital format.

Australians are among the converted, with 20% of ScanMyPhotos? worldwide orders emanating out of Australia. Goldstone said he now working on extensive expansion of the international photo scanning and digital imaging business.

He told PIN that while he will not be attending the PMA Show in Anaheim, ScanMyPhotos will be sponsoring the Photo Expo events at PMA.

PIN: How did ScanMyPhotos start?

ScanMyPhotos started as a service from our boutique retail photo centre - 30 Minute Photos Etc. - in 1990. The centre is now home to our worldwide headquarters and scanning and fulfilment operation. The retail store boasts Kodak kiosks and Kodak APEX dry lab for printing all types of photo products, from reprints to albums and Kodak

Sales continually rose until 2001 and then everything seized - technology and the economy forced all photo retailers to rethink and reinvent their entire business model. Since launching the ScanMyPhotso brand and web site, we are experiencing exponential growth and have tripled our staffing.

How does the service work?

Kodak high-speed scanning technology and our innovative, easy-to-order online prepaid, protected box make it super-fast and super-easy for consumers. Customers simply order several pre-paid boxes (which hold about 2000 standard photos) for US$149.95 each, or they can pack up their own boxes and pay US$64.00 for up to 1000 photos to be scanned. We also offer slide scanning, negative scanning, VHS to DVD transfer and data recovery.

Photographs are professionally scanned as 300 dpi JPEG files onto a DVD-R data disc.

Today our customer base is worldwide and referrals and use of social media have led to growth in this area.

How have you leveraged the scanning business across other imaging products?

Today, it is all about convenience and hassle-free personalised service. Once customers have us to scan photos, slides and film, it creates opportunities to market all of our other services.

Our retail photo centre 30 Minute Photos Etc. features banks of photo kiosks for easy, do-it-yourself designing of custom photo gifts and reprints. We aim to help customers create new memories from today's pictures captured on digital cameras and saved on computers.

ScanMyPhotos.com recently partnered with Mixbook.com to deliver what we consider the best online photo book creation software. Pricing starts at just US$6.99 per printed book for soft cover and US$19.99 per hard cover.