Custom photo albums are one of the fastest-growing markets of commercial printing. Joining this branch can bring high profits and many satisfied customers to your business. Are you a photo products retailer, run a photo lab, or manage a printing house? You would need professional photo album software.
That’s why we have collected a bunch of crucial information to help you pick the best photo album software provider:
- Why invest in photo album software?
- What are the key features of the best photo album software?
- Why should photo book editors include AI & smart tech?
- What are the profits of choosing an all-in-one platform?
Why invest in photo album software?
Each of us enjoys capturing precious moments in photos, which is now easier with the wider availability of mobile devices. New technologies have brought many changes to people’s lives, but printed photo albums are still bestselling.
However, creating photo books can be a time-consuming process. To become a leader in the photo album market, give your clients the best user experience and automate all tedious tasks.
The reason for that is clients want to achieve a beautiful effect without moving from the couch and putting too much effort into the process. Digital innovations, like dedicated photo printing software, should make it easier for them.
Photo album market predictions
Long-term forecasts assume that the global photo printing market will reach USD 27,335.3 million by 2027, with the growth rate of CAGR at 8.3%.
In fact, one of the most profitable sectors in this industry is the personalized photo books branch, which will achieve an increase of 10% by 2024, in the six largest European countries.
→ Find out more about the future of photo books.
Need for online photo book solutions
Before the Internet age, a person had to go to a photo printing store, left the pictures there, and wait for the fully developed photo book. A client had no influence on the details of the project. What’s more, they did not know what the final product would look like.
These days, more and more customers are searching for online photo album makers, what you can check, for example, in Google search trends.
Easy access to dedicated online technology has streamlined the design of professional-looking & personalized photo books. That’s why users can move from uploading pictures to creating a print-ready photo album in less than an hour.
Here’s the average creation time of a photo book, based on Printbox internal data collected in 2020.
However, the creation time also depends on the number and type of features in the editor. Customers will be more likely to buy if you offer them ready-made proposals and leave some room for creativity.
Therefore, consider professional photo album software to meet these assumptions.
Demand for personalized services
From personalized advertising to custom products, businesses are looking for the best ways to gain customer attention and maintain their loyalty.
Deloitte research has shown that at least one in three consumers would like to personalize products and services they use. Also, every fifth customer is ready to pay 20% more for a custom version of a product.
There is no better case of product personalization than the effect achieved with the creative photo album software. It allows people to tell personal stories through photos and takes care of their memories.
Therefore, you already know what are the benefits of joining the photo album market with the proper software. Let’s move on to the key features you should pay attention to when choosing a provider.
Key features of the best photo album software
It’s time to analyze the functions of photo album design software offered on the market. Depending on the scale of your printing business, suppliers may offer you a variety of options. Here are the ones you should pay special attention to.
High usability and intuitiveness
The shopping experience in the photo products market is crucial. Users not only buy the item but also design it themselves. Make the client’s task as easy as possible and choose the editor with proper usability and adequate features.
On the other hand, the software should let you configure each product type individually, or include new themes and design resources with no hassle.
→ Read more about customer experience in photo product businesses.
Dedicated buying paths
Professional photo album software allows your customers to define complex photo books in a few simple clicks, thanks to the multistep configurators.
As a result, they can effortlessly determine the size, orientation, cover, paper and overall style. The best solutions allow users to edit product attributes at every stage – before entering the editor, inside the designing tool, or even in the cart.
→ Check how to achieve higher conversion rates thanks to customizable buying paths.
A wide range of templates, themes and clip art
An extensive library of themes, backgrounds and clip art is a beneficial advantage of good photo album software.
Thanks to different templates and motives, the customer gains many options when creating a photo book. It stimulates their creativity and helps them create beautiful designs.
Mobile-responsive interface
No matter what size screen, platform, or orientation of a device, the professional photo album software can provide your customers with a consistent user experience.
Find out if the chosen supplier offers design services using RWD techniques. For extra mobile usability, it should also provide customizable iOS and Android applications.
→ Find out more about Responsive Web Design in Photo Printing Business.
Sustainable customization options
A well-designed photo album software keeps the balance between an automatic layout proposition and creative editing options.
Some vendors try to provide their customers with so many touching up features that regular users may be too overwhelmed. As a result, they can abandon the design because they never find it perfect enough.
Still and all, take care of the user’s comfort by giving them a constant overview of the design of their book.
Why should photo book editors include AI & smart tech?
Simply auto-filling the pages with photos is not enough to create a stunning effect. That is why printing companies are jumping into intelligent solutions. AI and Machine Learning highly reduce the time and work required for the photo selection and book creation processes.
There are three challenges in which Artificial Intelligence can support photo album software:
- simplifying the selection of photos for the project
- arranging photos and themes nicely to ensure a beautiful end-product
- generating various alternative versions and ideas.
Picking the best photos
For the photo selection, Machine Learning and computer vision will do the work best. These technologies analyze the customer’s photos and find patterns to propose the best collection of images. Besides, they evaluate pictures’ quality to create a composition that looks best when printed.
In Printbox, thanks to the Smart Creation, the analysis of a single photo takes less than 65 milliseconds, and we successively shorten the time needed.
Creating a great-looking product
To create stunning photo albums, a user needs some design and composition skills. Nevertheless, many people don’t have such abilities.
Instead, the algorithms can apply composition elements automatically. They take care of photo selection, grouping, layouts and decoration to speed up the creation of the final product.
Proposing several designs
Every fifth user prepares several versions of the photo album design and selects the one to purchase (based on Printbox internal data from 2020).
AI-supported photo album software can automate the design’s creation and prepare many design propositions. With different templates, themes, frames and backgrounds, it can help users create a photo album for any occasion.
→ Read more about Intelligent Algorithms in Photo Products Sector.
Why should you look for an all-in-one platform?
Launching the operation in the photo album sector requires the coordination of many elements. Besides choosing editors, you need to create a website, select e-commerce and take care of data hosting & storage. To save your time and resources, you can think about an all-in-one technology provider.
End-to-end photo album solutions come as a complete package, which – depending on the provider – can offer its customers a variety of options. Besides the products creation editors, they can include:
Production module and order management
The best photo book design solutions have a built-in production module, which automates the printing process.
Pay attention to whether your chosen photo album software provider offers tracking and order management features. The tracking system allows you to send information about the order status automatically. It is a notable option for you and your customers, as they can effortlessly follow what is happening with their order.
→ Check how Printbox Production Module works.
Complex pricing
Your photo album offer can be very diverse. The number of pages, different sizes, papers and covers can affect the product’s final cost.
Find a supplier that provides calculators for complex products with advanced pricing rules. Your clients will get an automated notification about how much they will pay for their photo album.
→ Check out an example of using photo product pricing calculators in the user journey.
Vouchers & discounts management
Discounts and coupons have a positive effect on many aspects of the business. They attract customers, increase brand awareness and improve the brand image.
VoucherClouds statistics show that 57% of customers are more willing to make their first purchase when they can redeem a coupon then. 90% of them returned to the same seller after a while.
By choosing a comprehensive technology provider for photo albums, you can manage the package of discounts and vouchers directly from the administration panel.
Multistore management
If you want to operate in several countries or create different brands for photo books and albums within your company, the multistore option should interest you.
This feature allows you to control all the operations from one command center (ERP) and — at the same time — manage products, pricing and discounts separately for every brand or country. This includes individual CMSs, content, and marketing of every single brand.
Now is your time to win the photo albums market
The title of the best photo printing service has become an attractive prize to win. To stay ahead of the competition, choose a software provider that will offer the key features the customers are looking for.
Remember that customers want to receive a product in the shortest possible time, with minimal handling and delivery costs.
Picking the right photo album software will be a way to secure your printing business & its future development, as well as your ability to offer the right omnichannel purchasing experience.
Inga Leder-Majewska
Content & Communication Manager in Printbox. She has over 5 years of experience in communication activities in social media, supporting the marketing team in PR activities, research, and expert content creation. In her spare time, she listens to true crime podcasts and takes long walks around Krakow.
