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Asda & instant printing


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With Asda annoucing the big deal with Sony to install instant printing kiosk, I thought I would pay my local Asda a visit to have a look. Quite surprised to see one already up and running, I say running? I went for a coffee and poistioned myself where I could see everything going on. Going on? well nothing really, the frontier looked switched off to me, or at least the film proccessor had its lid up. The instant kiosk was ignored by the one customer the supermarket had and the lady appeared to struggle with the fuji order kiosk, scratching her head a number of times. No staff offered help, in fact I could not see any staff around the lab area. The lady gave up, as she walked away from the kiosk, right past the instant print setup.

My feeling is that unmanned instant printing is a dead end and the sooner ASDA,TESCO and the rest of the big boys go down that route the better.

What do you all think?

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  • 3 months later...

I see that our local Sainsburys have now had the Persil Fuji Frontier removed and has been replaced by 2 Kodak instant print Kiosks. The scruffy 18 year old oik who was floating a round looked completely lost. I will investigate if they provide a film processing service. If they don't then this will work in our favour. Timpsons are the new operators, and this Sainsburys was the only one out of four stores who operated a lab.

I hope this is the first sign that the big boys are losing interest.

PS; ASDA charge 19p for instant prints from thier kiosks, wonder how long they want to be running a big lab with its staffing costs? Same applies to Tesco as they always seem to have three staff in attendance.

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walked past Klick in newcastle this am, - 8 kiosks installed (4 instant 4 wetlab) - and ALL BEING USED !!! - even 1 person waiting !

Customers are happy with self serve kiosks, - and more than happy to pay more for 'instant' convenience ........

will i replace my wet lab ????? - don't know, -but will get more instant printers.

P

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  • 5 months later...

i went into my local tesco`s on Valentines nigh saw that they`ve done away with their wet labs and installed instant print kiosks.

they had 5 kiosks out which one was out of order andthe other had run out of paper.

i stood there for about half an hour and only saw one couple using it.

over 49 prints were at .15p each so with media costs @ .10p that does`nt leave much profit when you look at repair and maintenance costs and plus the outlay of the kiosk

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This is the way the big multiples want to go. They can then offer a photo services with no or very little staffing costs. If the customer wants anything out of the ordinary they can get stuffed. Service for you!! The cost of material is farr higher than wet labs so thay will not be able to keep to the current pricing structure, which is designed to put everyone else out of business. The sooner they all convert the better!!

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I think you need to think again about dye sub media costs.

As a single site single printer opperator I can get media for less than 6p, so selling at 15p gives a much bigger margin than a wet lab print which costs you around 2p and you sell for 6p, 8p, or even 10p ?

PLUS - no staff, cheaper kit, no heavy elec or service bill.

makes sence to me!

P

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Strange they are doing this here when their parent Wal-Mart have comprehensive photo departments with lots of kiosks and Frontier minilabs. I wonder whether this is a trend and would be interested to know what they are doing in the US?

Nash, which instant print kiosks are they running? Can't imagine Fuji would be too pleased to be losing all that paper?

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A rep told me before Christmas that new rules coming into force meant that supermarkets couldnt have a wet lab on the sales floor along with food. I didnt really believe this but if there is a move to either kiosks or moving the lab out back then maybe it is true.

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