Brand Research

SWOT
Strengths
- Knowledgeable staff
- Large range of stock and products.
- Extensive list of services
- Quality product and brands
- Local homegrown company (providence) - people like to support local and are willing to spend the extra $$

Weaknesses
- Website is lacking visual aesthetics and engagement
- Social media accounts are not as active, there is no two-way dialogue with the customers.
- Little to no advertising (customers have to know about store through word of mouth)
- Focus on knowledge, less on feeling and teaching
-Bad store layout - confusing, no way finding
- Location - main store isn’t in shopping district - this means no passer by visits, have to know about store first.

Opportunities
- Close to Massey where photography is taught as a degree
-Promote Wellington origin
- The empty space in store has potential
- Connect customers - network and collaborate with them
- Organisation of the store
-Bring back interest in actual cameras - not phones
- Improve online presence and interaction
- Teach photography skills - pass on knowledge
- Play on the excitement of developing film, Serendipity and unexpected results
-Display more inspirational work, - art gallery, Make it feel slick, pro, clean and simple - show off work of staff and customers

Threats
-Online shopping and trading
-Rise of ‘everyone is a photographer’ with iPhones and photo editing apps such as instagram, snapchat.
-Photography is no longer what it was
- Other companies advertising more and Wellington Photographic Supplies gets lost
- Home printing and kiosks
- Technology makes it simple for people to edit pictures, they lose knowledge about exposure etc, “Photography is becoming a lost art”.

Brand history

Wellington Photographic Supplies (WPS) was founded in 1992 by three mates, John Whiltshire, Dave Daniels and Ross Hansen.

However in 2002, Dave and John sold out to Ross while continuing to work within the company. Currently is it solely owned by Ross who runs the Vivian street store with the help from Sean Atkin. Wellington Photographic Supplies is now one of the largest photographic retailers in New Zealand.

The main store has been based in Vivian street since the start, and have only moved across the road to its current premises in 1998. The second, smaller store (also owned by Ross and a silent partner) was located on Grey Street in the centre of the CBD for twenty years until the 2013 earthquakes which deemed the building unsafe and they relocated to a new location on Featherston street. Although the City store is considered a sister store, it is still a different store.

Ross’s partner owns a third store which is considered part of the WPS family, Photo Espresso. Located in Victoria street (formerly located in Courtenay Place), it’s focus is on being a cafe with a photo store. It offers all the elements of being a cafe with full photographic printing services as well.

Product (Service)

Since opening WPS has evolved into a leading photographic retailer in New Zealand. With an extensive range of photographic equipment for sale, hiring and trade-ins, WPS also offer an extensive list of photographic services that they specialise in from printing 6x4’s to image recovery. WPS are the only Lomography specialists in Wellington

Products:
-Digital Cameras/SLRs
-SLR Lenses
-Camera Equipment/Accessories (Tripods, Flashes, Memory cards)
-Video equipment
-Audio equipment
-Film
-Film cameras
-Darkroom supplies
-Bags & cases
-Sports optics (binoculars, scopes)
-Second hand equipment
-Scanners, printers
-Lighting equipment

Services:
-Develop & print film
-Scanning and file transfer
-Image restoration and editing
-Image recovery
-Custom wood-block mounting
-Video to DVD transfer
-Archival back up
-Canvas prints
-Artwork copying/reproduction to digital format

Promotion

RADIO
Currently Wellington Photographic Supplies has limited advertising. They currently have three commercials being broadcast across two major networks, Radioworks and The Radio Network. There is currently a 15 second commercial playing on Radioworks and a 15 second and 30 second commercial on The Radio Network. WPS don’t have a say on specific stations, they get split up among the stations owned by each company.

WEBSITE
Wellington Photographic Supplies also have a store website where customers can find out the latest promotions and also shop online. The website is very basic layout with tabs to online shopping including second hand items, lab services, a gallery of photographs by staff and customers, contact details, and a links page to photographers, brand and photography blogs.

SOCIAL MEDIA
With no television or print promotion, WPS has a range of social media accounts, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Flickr. These accounts are not currently promoted in store, so the consumer would have to be actively looking for the company on these sites. (Not obviously available) The accounts are not super active, with posts averaging one every few days generally promoting a new instore deal, introducing a new product or photography related articles.

Due to lack of advertising WPS rely heavily on word-of-mouth promotion and building strong relationships and creating loyalty amongst their regular customers.

Price & Place.

To figure out where WPS stands in the price range, we examined how certain cameras and services were priced across a range of photography stores, technology stores and online shopping. We found that each store had different combo deals with lenses and equipment so it was hard to compare the exact product across the stores. However it was clear that our assumption that technology retail stores such as Harvey Norman and Noel Lemming would be the cheapest were wrong, they turned out to have to most expensive pricing. Online shopping was significantly cheaper (by hundreds of dollars) and WPS and Photo Warehouse were priced between the two. In the service category we tested basic services such as developing film and printing digital photographs. The outcome was the the tech stores were priced the cheapest and the photography stores charged 3 times more. The online store was not valid for this test.

WPS: mid – high cost in product. / High cost in service but more range

Photo warehouse: Low-Mid cost in product / SERVICE?

Tech Retailers: High cost in product/ Low cost in service but very limited/

Online: Low Cost online / But no services.

Do a visual representation for this- so easy to ‘read’? rather than heaps of text and just a one or two sentence summary? a graph maybe?

Competition

Wellington Photographic Supplies direct competitor would be Photo Warehouse, who are located on Victoria Street. We also consider that technology based retailers such as Noel Leeming and Harvey Norman, who stock a range of photographic equipment are a secondary competitor. Online shopping is also regard as a competitor, including camera supply shops, auction sites and buying direct from brand.

Photo Warehouse.
WPS’s main competitor has five ‘showrooms’ through New Zealand in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Formed in 1987, Photo Warehouse is a 100% owned and operated company. The Wellington store being the main competitor stocks an extensive range of photographic equipment and services.

Technology Retail Stores.
Retailers like Noel Leeming, Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi, These companies stock moderate ranges of cameras and limited in equipment. Photographic services are restricted to digital kiosks.

Online shopping.
Online shopping is on the rise – about how it’s a large. People are likely to go online to find a good deal, or if they can’t be bothered going in store.
Buying direct from the brand ie . Canon or Nikon. EDIT THIS BIT!

price compare

Physical workbook notes