Year-to-date photo-industry research findings

by Kerry Raminiak

You have to pardon the laziness of this most recent blog post as it is a recap of all of the statistics of the professional photography industry to date this year –- consider it your clip show.

But please keep in mind, this is great stuff and we have a pretty good, albeit very selfish, reason: We needed a single place to harbor the links and analysis to these topics for our July newsletter (we ask Richmond Professional Labs to evaluate the validity of some of these claims). That means you’re in luck if you are in need of good tips and advice because the July issue of our newsletter comes out tomorrow. Click here to sign up if you haven’t done so already!

In no particular order…

Digital photo frame ownership doubles between 2007 and 2008
According to PMA Marketing Research, 22 percent of U.S. households owned a digital photo frame in 2008, doubling from the previous year citing that previous year products had very specific impediments such as cost, connectivity and lack of features. The influence of social media outlets and the resultant prevalence of digital photo sharing is seen as a driver. A study by In-Stat indicates that desires are echoed in requests for integrated wireless connectivity and that digital photo frames are predicted to reach 50 million and that 8-inch frames will come in below $36 by 2013. To purchase or learn more about the In-Stat digital photo frame study, click here.

Photo merch represents highest growth potential for photos... Moms and Young Adults key target audiences
The InfoTrends PMT group published a report with the assurance that the photo merchandise market “currently offers the highest growth potential of any segment within the consumer digital imaging market.” Other highlights are that “young adults” and “moms” are the most lucrative segments of the market explaining that while 21% of the total population surveyed reported purchasing photo merchandise within the past year, 40% of females with children younger than 12 and 30% people aged 18 to 24 said they bought photo products. If you want to read more, find their press release here.

Photobooks and scrapbooks get confused in the consumer eye despite high prevelance in purchases
According to the most recent PMA Data Watch report, the classification and description of photo books is perplexing to the non-photographer as it is often lumped with scrapbooking and creating your own album pages with digital ownership of images (and printing to local, inexpensive home printers) versus how pros want the term “photo books” to equate a very specific photography product offered to the masses. As marketing experts put their minds together to mitigate this confusion, those that sell photo books are seeing an increase in demand (4%) but that demand is far less than anticipated in comparison to last year. Is the solution simply about getting the word out? (You can buy the 2009 PMA Photo Book Report here)

Women with children the most powerful photography purchasers in Western European study
In the latest InfoTrends report, they surveyed Western European “females between the ages of 25 and 44 with children under the age of 12” whom represent a very large market segment in the $900 million photo merchandise market. The research indicates that this particular demographic takes, prints, and shares more photos than the general population while also being a little more elusive to market to as they represent a very specific socio-graphic (i.e. marketing to moms, in particular, is a very niche-based science). In addition, this segment is more likely than total photo merchandise buyers to purchase from online sources, citing convenience as a powerful deciding factor. (You can purchase the very thorough InfoTrend report for a pretty hefty price tag here. For a better summary, you can also review PMA International’s report synopsis here.)