HP Making Their Presence Known
HP Launching Photo Kiosks in Retailers
In this article we learned that Hewlett Packard will begin setting up photo kiosks in discount retail stores. People can then bring in their digital photos and develop them on the spot. HP has pretty much been known for their printers and digital cameras so far and this is another step towards greater consumer recognition. HP already has photo printers that let people just plug in their camera and print out the photos they choose but by adding these kiosks to local stores anyone can use them. These type of photo kiosks already exist in stores and HP will be faced with some heavy hitters as far as competition. They will now be directly competing with Kodak, Sony, and Fuji. This is a good idea I think despite the added competition they'll face. Too many companies choose to sit idly by while advances are being made all around them. We can see this in the case of Netflix and Blockbuster. Blockbuster basically wrote Netflix off as a threat and now they're paying for it with loss of revenues. By just sitting back doing nothing while Netflix was emerging they come off as an arrogant company with poor management - it's just bad business. I think HP will be successful with this project based on their standing reputation alone. Everyone knows they make quality products and this should be treated no different.
posted by Jeff at 3:07 PM
5 Comments:
HP has made a wise move of implementing kiosks into grocery stores and wholesalers. They are following a trend that their competitor Dell has been doing for years. The best way for HP to increase their sales for digital photograph printers in such a saturated market is to let customers test, touch and get a feel for the product. With almost every printer company coming out with photograph printers they needed something to set them apart. If HP saturates enough chain stores the word will spread fast about their product and eventually increase sales. Even though buying products online is the wave of the future many customers still like to see and test what they are buying before hand.
February 24, 2006
HP photo kiosk
This is a potential repeat of their failed Kodak/HP venture this time by HP- the past project "Phogenix" using same ink technology,it was too slow at 250 prints per hr,plus hype about sales of up to $1bn annually,Phogenix failed because it was poorly received by the market and print cost was over the moon,talk about trying to rewrite history,there famous brand doesn't relate to the digital kiosk retail space,plus digital camera owners are brand loyal,the Canon guy is not going to insert his media into HP,or either is the Kodak owner,same with Nikon,so they have less than 5% of the digital camera market.
With a HP/Kodak kiosk venture, they spent millions of dollars, built a new plant-went to market with poor response to these kiosks then shut it down before they where delivered to handful of customers, saying they where in the “wrong space”-and home printing was where they should be--expect this is panic move to shore up sliding home printing.
Ink jet in the public space just is not good enough quality at a retail level--it has lots of problems with getting the right mix of colours on prints-and with paper having to absorbed the ink at high speed-there will be issues and un happy customers, let alone archival quality of about 20-30yrs these prints begin to fade within 2yrs, our 100yrs archival values at pxidigital®, we offer customers “instant gratification”® expect our customer turn around time will be 2-3 times faster than the HP kiosk, with superior quality digital prints, just spent 14mths retail testing with fantastic customer responses most say we are way in front of the Kodak on demand kiosk quality,we launch is 2 weeks with 2.9 sces per print,having a deal in place before launch for some 35,000 of our kiosks in China over next 5yrs
We went down the path of inkjet 3.5yrs ago when we first started our R&D with Epson as engine supplier,they have in my view equal IP to HP, after retail testing we dropped this inkjet technology,there where too many customer issues with print quality-plus archival issues with inkjet.
The above are registered trademarks of Velocitimage Group Pty Ltd.
February 24, 2006
I think that it’s a smart move on HP’s part to add photo kiosks in discount retail stores. Since their competitors Kodak, Sony, and Fuji have already had these machines in stores for a while, it is about time that HP step up the competition. I like the example that you used concerning Netflix and Blockbuster. This shows exactly what can happen if a company decides to sit back, relax, and not do anything about their competitors. If I saw a HP kiosk in a store, I would feel confident using their product because I know that they are a respected brand name.
February 26, 2006
Jeff,
I personally don’t think that this is a smart move of HP. As a loyal customer of Shutterfly.com, I have to say that is it quite enjoyable to order pictures for 19 cents each and then 3 days later get them in the mail. I know that there are photo kiosks in Happy Harry’s and I have never used one, but I did go with a friend once when they were getting pictures printed. The only difference in price is that by using a photo kiosk, you save money on shipping, and I normally pay $1.99 on shipping which isn’t really a big deal at all. However, I think that taking 10 minutes to upload my pictures, clicking the ones I want to order and then hitting the submit button, in the comfort of my own apartment is more appealing then going out to a store and clicking a bunch of buttons to sit there and wait for the pictures to print out. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how HP fares.
March 04, 2006
Once again this entry is a winner. I am excited about this announcement by HP this week for many reasons. First, I think that HP is one of the most respected companies that deal with technology, and they will fit in fine with their competition. They already have a large digital camera market, and they are well respected in digital printing. I also think that by opening up these kiosks they will open up the opportunity to a new digital camera and printing market. HP’s stock is rising, and they seem to know what they are doing. Don’t be so nervous about the competition. If people own HP computers (which they have the largest market share in the world), they will use their digital products and go to these Kiosks.
March 05, 2006
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