How Printbox responds to the challenges of the photo printing market

For almost 10 years, we have analyzed visitors’ behavior to stores with photo products. Based on these observations, we found particular pain points influencing their decision to postpone or cancel the order altogether. We also detected many bottlenecks we discussed with customers using alternative solutions available on the market.  

On this basis, we developed features that contributed to increasing customer satisfaction and improving their sales results. In this post I will cover a few of them.  

Smart Creation — AI-driven photo book creation  

The challenge:
elongated project editing time and drawn-out purchasing process

Despite the skeptical voices still appearing in the photo printing market that AI creates only amazing presentations without driving sales, we see incredible profit-generating potential in it.  

As a photo product software provider, we identified three major categories of challenges that AI technology can respond to:  

• how to make selecting photos for the project easier for the user  
• how to make the product design process more appealing and provide a variety of alternative versions and ideas  
• how to arrange pictures aesthetically for a beautifully finished product.  

It is trivial to say that the goal of any business is to get the client to take the step from start to purchase as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, it is extremely important in the photo printing industry, where 54.51% of photo books are created and ordered on the same day. For 70% of all purchased projects, the transaction is concluded within 4 days of their creation (data collected among Printbox customers).  

Printbox Smart Creation is the result of our commitment to minimize the burden on users when creating stylish photo books and to do this with as little effort as possible on the part of Printbox customers. Its effectiveness is confirmed by the results collected among our clients – the average time to prepare a photo book using Smart Creation is reduced by over 40,2% to 50,3%, comparing to creating a project manually. 

To know more about how Smart Creation works, read our Smart Guide: Intelligent Algorithms in Photo Products Sector.  

Four various editors for different needs  

The challenge:
too poor or too extensive editors available on the market are not suitable for the needs of different target audiences 

The photo product market is now so broad that it has to meet the needs of various target groups. The functions offered by many commonly available editors are often insufficient for more professional users. Conversely, many advanced options are redundant when designing simple products, such as prints.  

That is why we offered 4 dedicated editors that are to be tailored to the requirements of specific customer groups: 

• Advanced Editor – contains all functions that allow users to quickly create beautiful projects such as photo books, calendars or albums. They don’t even have to move from the couch to create a custom-made project! 
• PRO Editor – the professional photo market is smaller and more demanding than the consumer market but still plays a significant role in the photo product industry. Such a target group will be interested in a dedicated editor, offering many manual editing options, thanks to which they will refine each project in every detail. 
• Simple Editor – products such as gifts, wall arts, and cards should be designed quickly and fun. In Simple Editor, users can add many clip art, texts, frames and patterns to express their creativity and make a purchase quickly. 
• Prints Editor – simplicity and intuitiveness are the key to success with single prints. That is why we gave up unnecessary functions and offered a tool that allows users to place an order in just a few moments. 

Mobile app 

The challenge:
reaching users of mobile devices 

In 2020, we conducted traffic and conversion analysis with 2 of our clients on the mobile channel. It turned out that 13.7%-16.3% of all ordered and paid photo products were generated on mobile. 

Therefore, if over 10% of your traffic comes from mobile channels, it is a signal that you should become interested in creating a mobile application for your store. It will allow you to:  

• Increase your audience by using a new channel.  
• Gain more data to analyze customer behavior to target your offer better.  
• Increase your brand awareness. 

We built the Printbox app with a mobile-first approach. All screens were designed to fit small displays perfectly, and the entire interface is fully adapted to a mobile user’s routine and touch interactions. This directly translates into the user experience of your customers. 

To find out more about our mobile application offer, click here. 

Flexible buying paths 

The challenge:
determining the optimal purchasing path for very complex products 

Selling photo products is much more complex than online trading for other items, such as clothes or shoes. Photo products are configurable items, and the number of combinations of different project elements is enormous. Each product family has its own parameters that must be adapted to each other. 

That’s why it’s crucial that you can customize the buying paths for each product category. In Printbox, it is possible to adapt every journey’s element to the specificity of the product and your needs. You can use various calculators, complex exclusions, and advanced attributes – all you require to get the most profit out of selling comprehensive photo products. 

Wrapping up 

We constantly monitor the market and, together with our clients, track the gaps that require the development of new functions. If you want to find out if Printbox will be suitable for solving your photo printing business challenges, don’t hesitate to contact our Sales Team using the form available here.