Driven by the introduction of digital imaging, the professional photography industry has been in a state of constant reinvention for a solid two decades. Now, Group Photography Association (GPA) with CaptureLife is taking the next step in this evolution.
As a leading youth sports photography lab located in Washington State, GPA focuses on helping its sports photographer clients succeed in a competitive market by providing them with the most innovative sports photography products and lab services available. The photographers GPA supports generate more than one million youth sports photographic print orders annually.
Keeping Step with a Changing Market
In 2016, the mobile phone was already considered a mature technology, and yet the photography industry had not embraced it. Derek Tyler, General Manager of GPA, knew it was only a matter of time before the mobile tidal wave hit the photography industry. His goal? Make sure that he and his clients were riding the wave, and not getting swamped by it.
Known for his innovative approach to the business, Derek wanted to help his clients evolve their businesses to be centered around a mobile and social experience. He realized that today and for the next 20 years, buyers of sports and school photography are the millennial generation. Their world centers around their mobile phones and the social connections that come with it and to get their business, he reasoned, you need to adopt a mobile-first strategy.
Derek was looking for a way to help his clients connect, deliver and engage today's consumer via the mobile phone. More importantly, he and his clients still needed to make money as they incorporated ordering, delivering and servicing directly to consumers' smartphones.
Pioneering a New Model and Growing Revenue
Derek wanted a partner that understood his market and the mobile ecosystem. Someone that was looking at the business through the lens of a Millennial, understood what they wanted and would deliver a great social-mobile commerce experience. Just as importantly, he needed all of this to efficiently connect to his lab production system. It was a tall order, but after much research, Derek found CaptureLife.
"CaptureLife allowed us to change the way we connect with our photographers and their customers while enabling us to make more money. The technology makes it possible to efficiently deliver professional quality images right to the consumer's smartphone," said Derek. With CaptureLife, GPA is now bundling print products with delivery of the digital image to a smartphone.
"This is what parents today want," explained Derek, "They get pictures on their smartphone so they can easily save and share them, along with the traditional print products that our photographer business partners sell. This new ability generates higher average order value for our customers and happier parents who buy from them."
The CaptureLife solution allows GPA photographers to quickly and easily deliver key photographic memories, messages, and merchandise directly to a consumer's smartphone in a way that delights the customer and makes the photographer more money. With CaptureLife's in-app re-ordering tool, GPA is directly connected to a consumer's smartphone allowing them to purchase in a way that's never been done before, increasing the value of each sale for their photography partners.
"This is why GPA's photographers are embracing the CaptureLife offering." said Derek. "On average, we are seeing our customers profit an extra $3 to $8 per order when they include CaptureLife digital deliveries in their packages or as add-ons. And because of CaptureLife's integration into our processing systems, all our customers have to do is change their order forms and start promoting the new digital delivery offering"
Derek concluded, "CaptureLife has created the most powerful and advanced photo storage, sharing, and commerce app we have encountered, and a great enterprise solution that we use to connect to our lab software to deliver images when and where the customer demands. All in a way, that makes us more money!"
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