Archived Photo Lab - The Forgotten Department

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My store has a lab, and it is staffed during its operating hours. We got the kiosk upgrades too.

Now, staffing is a moot point considering every store my in region can't get ahold of any paper kits, so we're all playing a game of "Ooh, we got one, lets blow it on the backlog!" MySupport wasn't any help. I told my ETLs about it, and they ended up getting the same message back from MySupport that I got.

The real kick in the teeth was the sign we got one day. Call an 800-number to have a Kodak phone rep talk you through the ordering process on the kiosk. Also known as what I'm currently getting paid to do.
 
ours is somewhat ok staffed. There is one in the morning and one in the late afternoon/evening. I somewhat know Photo well enough to help out if needed but I could not open or close Photo if needed.
 
Opening or closing photo should be easy now that all stores went dry... Try opening or closing back when it was a wet-lab.. haha. I still remember doing my control strips in the morning ;)
 
I'm the only surviving photo lab team member, at my store. I get anywhere from 2 to 18 hours to work in the lab, that includes: backup at the lanes.. covering breaks for GSTLs/GSAs, Service Desk, & Food Ave.. and go out for carts as needed...
When I get those chores done, then I can spend a little time in the lab...

Do you know, that may guests don't know how to use there cell phones..? How to transfer photos to the kiosk..?
Other team members don't know how to scan out supplies..? or Load paper..? or Clear a jam..? or Even push a printer, all the way in till it locks in place...
Until others figure out how to do things, maybe they'll keep me around for awhile.???
or
Maybe they'll just close it down, and I can sell alcoholic beverages from that part of the store.??? Anybody need a drink?
 
WI klab said:
Do you know, that may guests don't know how to use [their] cell phones..?
Click to expand...

99% of the guests I get that need help doing something are people that need help downloading the app to their phone... which have a billion other apps downloaded to it that aren't pre-installed by their carrier. Most of them don't know their own app store / itunes password.
 
ours is going the way of the VHS in 2016, by bye and good riddance
 
redandkhaki said:
ah.. i miss photo! Back in the day I was the photo specialist and it so much fun! I was so bummed when they took out the wet lab. :(
We're suppose to get 70 hours a week for photo from MyTime but our STL took them and said flow needed them more. I really just wanted to hours to use that person as a breaker for the front end but flow always wins out.
Click to expand...
That's the biggest order you have ever seen? I just had a $60+ order the other day!
 
I had a couple that travels to Europe every few months. THey print ALL their pictures. The last order which was 3 months ago was $400 in one day.
 
My store was built with a photo lab but it closed around 2006. We used the area for photo staging (My store outsourced even Target brand photos outside the building) until around 2010-ish. Wound down over a year to let people pick up their prints and we just threw the rest away far as I was told. Now the space where it was doesn't even exist, our remodel took the area and expanded our pharmacy section. And our kiosk is a piece of shit so I would never bother trying to use it. I'll just go to Walmart where their photo business is still thriving.
 
Photo Lab is just operated by the electronics team member at my store. There have been times when an electronics team member would call out and I would cover it, and if I had to help in Photo Lab I'm a deer in the headlights.
 
Just get rid of Photo. It is no longer worth the space in stores (I can see a self service kiosk since it takes up such little space, but Kodak needs to own it or get out of our stores). Most newer prototype stores are in desperate need of space to store all these FF orders now, while photo sits there without Kodak support. The opportunity cost of keeping it is dreadful and it pains to see us keep them.
 
We still have a photo area, plus the kiosks, but 99% of the time it's used as a holding pen for guest holds and flexes. They've tried to move instore pickups to that area but since it's so far from the lanes theyve installed a button, and now half the time the instore pickup people just come to GS like before and the rest press the button and leave us scrambling to catch it.

I wish we could have dedicated photo TM(s), even one a day. It'd make life easier.
 
They don't put anyone at Photo and expect GS to handle it, but it's a pain in the ass to deal with because it's a constant back and forth between the two locations for usually just one TM. Plus since we've run out of supplies, I wanna close the damn thing down but they want it to run run run until we're all out.
 
SnorlaxTM said:
They don't put anyone at Photo and expect GS to handle it, but it's a pain in the ass to deal with because it's a constant back and forth between the two locations for usually just one TM. Plus since we've run out of supplies, I wanna close the damn thing down but they want it to run run run until we're all out.
Click to expand...

I think I've mentioned this before in another thread, but our store has an actual Kodak employee who works in the photo department. It's the hugest lifesaver ever. I can't imagine how GS could function if it had to take care of photo as well. I also don't understand how the need to print photos is still so common these days. I wonder if it will eventually become irrelevant. We don't process film anymore...so at least there's that.
 
Assuming all prints were 4 x 6, upwards of 2,500 photographs at 15 cents each, if done using Lab service instead of Prints in Seconds.
 
Our photo section still gets plenty of traffic. I'm waiting to get trained so that I know what to do if they ever need backup.
 
We still have a photo area with two kiosks and a one hour service. It stays pretty steady but we don't have anyone staffed over there. It's up to guest service to handle it and seeing as half the guest service team members know zip about photo, it's up to the GSAs to hold the guest's hand because they don't know how to download an app much less use one. We didn't even get any hours over there during the holidays last year. It....was....hell. I'm really hoping they give us a few hours a day at least for the holidays this year.
 
we can easily make $10,000 a month in photo,
maybe more, if they send us supplies...
 
Even if you discount the fact that the Photo Lab is down in every one of our stores in the entire district because we're all waiting for supplies, we don't do much with our photo lab. We don't even have any Photo Lab team members, all of our old photo lab team members basically got merged into Service Desk, and now it's just up to the Service Desk TM's to oversee photo, and they don't even get trained to do so. Plus, since none of our LOD's know how the printer/photo lab works, it falls to the GSA to know how to operate photo lab. And God help us all if the GSA/GSTL doesn't know how to fix the issue.
 
WI klab said:
we can easily make $10,000 a month in photo,
maybe more, if they send us supplies...
Click to expand...

That is like $350 a day worth of Photo orders (so busy over there). The question is would this make more money than something else within the same square footage? If you put solely insta-prints on the wall how much money would those make (without having to spend payroll), and could you put something else where all of Photo is that would bring in a higher profit? You could probably put ANYTHING up there and make more basically.
 
the best we made, was 70% controllable profit ...
the first year we went dry, that changed to -2% ...
 
I have so many guests that come in for photo and then do their shopping while waiting for their pictures. A few still call once a week to see if we're open yet. They shop elsewhere and say they'll be back when our photo is back up and running.
 
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