25,000 Photos - only 15% Sold???

[mikjr]

On our recent Hawaii Cruise, I took the Ultimate Ship Tour which included a trip through the photo lab.

 

I asked the supervisor how many photos are taken during the two week cruise... he said about 25,000... yes, Twenty Five THOUSAND!

 

So that begged the question, how many are sold? I was shocked when he said only 15%!!

 

I did a bit of calculating.. 25,000 x an average of $20/photo equates to $500,000 (a half million!). but, the kicker is, 15% of that is only $75,000!!

 

So the question is... does the $75,000 cover their costs; labor, paper, ink; and the cost of the 85% that doesn't sell??

 

It doesn't sound very profitable... What am I missing??

[robgvic]

You will find that they reuse the paper. If they didnt make money they wouldnt do it

[mikjr]

You will find that they reuse the paper. If they didnt make money they wouldnt do it

 

That's what I thought also... he did say everything was recycled... paper, chemicals, etc. but $75,000?

 

I can see why many of the newer ships are going with photos on Screen Kiosks... and then you can ID your photos by room or a face recognition program

[ORDMan]

Photo paper is not recycled, the ships use a real mini lab with photosensitive paper just like a one hour photo. The chemicals are recycled however as they are not environmentally friendly. But yes the production costs are very low to make money even at that level. One hour photo shops are profitable-I used to own one in a mall. They're going out of favor since fewer people print photos these days and those that do often have their own printers. But for high volume low cost production a minilab can reduce per print costs to around 2-3 cents each. That's just printing costs, not labor, etc but you get the idea.

[Jo and Rob]

On our recent Hawaii Cruise, I took the Ultimate Ship Tour which included a trip through the photo lab.

 

I asked the supervisor how many photos are taken during the two week cruise... he said about 25,000... yes, Twenty Five THOUSAND!

 

So that begged the question, how many are sold? I was shocked when he said only 15%!!

 

I did a bit of calculating.. 25,000 x an average of $20/photo equates to $500,000 (a half million!). but, the kicker is, 15% of that is only $75,000!!

 

So the question is... does the $75,000 cover their costs; labor, paper, ink; and the cost of the 85% that doesn't sell??

 

It doesn't sound very profitable... What am I missing??

 

I think part of the answer is in the reply from the supervisor the photographers took 25,000 pictures on their memory cards, but you will find that not every picture goes to print.

[mikjr]

I think part of the answer is in the reply from the supervisor the photographers took 25,000 pictures on their memory cards, but you will find that not every picture goes to print.

 

that's a good point... they may not print ALL of that 25,000. I'm sure there are some that don't come out due to quality reasons. I was still a bit surprised by the "purchase rate" of 15%.

 

someone asked if they'd sell more photos if they dropped the price down to $10.00 each... he said NO. I'm sure they've analyzed the price points many times.

[caribill]

On our recent Hawaii Cruise, I took the Ultimate Ship Tour which included a trip through the photo lab.

 

I asked the supervisor how many photos are taken during the two week cruise... he said about 25,000... yes, Twenty Five THOUSAND!

 

So the question is... does the $75,000 cover their costs; labor, paper, ink; and the cost of the 85% that doesn't sell??

 

 

25k x $20/photo is what they would get if they sell them all, not what it costs in time, equipment and materials to actually print them. The 85% that do not sell must cost little enough that it is worth it to Princess to do this.

 

The ship's I have been on that have the computer screens to view and order photos have also printed them all out and I suspect the Royal Princess will also do that. Think how many computer terminals would be required to allow 3500 passengers to view their photos, usually multiple times over the course of a cruise, without long lines waiting to use a terminal. I would expect many less photos to be sold if terminals were the only way to display and sell pictures.

 

Also, human nature being what it is, most people will choose to take a couple of minutes to look for a printed photo rather than taking the amount of time it would take to wait for a terminal and then figure out how to use it and then actually use it properly.

 

I also hope that the facial recognition software works better than the last ship I was on that had that feature. Here was my experience that time:

 

When I tried it, the results were mixed.

a) Even though my cruise card was swiped for the welcome aboard picture and the formal night picture taking, none of these pictures appeared.

b) Pictures taken at ports appeared

c) Some pictures taken of others in our family who had their reservation linked to ours, but without me or my spouse in them, also appeared. Maybe our faces are similar enough?

d) A picture of total strangers (to us) also was in the displayed group.

[WVBill]

On my UST in February I asked why they don't use the digital kiosk approach to avoid printing all those photos that go to waste.

 

The answer was "We've found that when a person has an actual photo in their hand, they're more likely to buy it than if they're looking at that photo on the screen."

 

The "Princess demographic" may fit into that equation too. Folks my age may be more likely to stop by the "photo wall" and search for our pictures than sit at a computer. And once we have the picture in our hands, are more likely to buy it.

 

I too was surprised that they use actual photo paper and chemicals v.s. ink jet or dye sub printing and he explained that getting to the quality level they want and can achieve with photo paper and chemicals would be cost prohibitive with dye sub printing AND photo processing is much faster than dye sub printing and allows them to chrun out all those photos on a next-day basis.

[NewPennCruiser]

25k x $20/photo is what they would get if they sell them all, not what it costs in time, equipment and materials to actually print them. The 85% that do not sell must cost little enough that it is worth it to Princess to do this.

 

The ship's I have been on that have the computer screens to view and order photos have also printed them all out and I suspect the Royal Princess will also do that. Think how many computer terminals would be required to allow 3500 passengers to view their photos, usually multiple times over the course of a cruise, without long lines waiting to use a terminal. I would expect many less photos to be sold if terminals were the only way to display and sell pictures.

 

Also, human nature being what it is, most people will choose to take a couple of minutes to look for a printed photo rather than taking the amount of time it would take to wait for a terminal and then figure out how to use it and then actually use it properly.

 

I also hope that the facial recognition software works better than the last ship I was on that had that feature. Here was my experience that time:

 

When I tried it, the results were mixed.

a) Even though my cruise card was swiped for the welcome aboard picture and the formal night picture taking, none of these pictures appeared.

b) Pictures taken at ports appeared

c) Some pictures taken of others in our family who had their reservation linked to ours, but without me or my spouse in them, also appeared. Maybe our faces are similar enough?

d) A picture of total strangers (to us) also was in the displayed group.

 

They had these terminals on our recent Sapphire cruise and actually had quite a few. We were trying to get one to work and a photographer came over and explained to us what they were for, etc similar to what you stated, but we could never find anything or really get it to do anything for us. After getting frustrated with it, we quit and just continued to browse the printed photos in the gallery. Maybe they weren't ready yet or we were doing something wrong but when I looked for the photographer to ask more questions, he was off talking to someone else about cameras.

 

The technology sounds great and people probably will use it, especially to find all of their pictures once many of the printed ones are recycled and moved around throughout the cruise. But it needs to be simple to use and work. I'm a tech geek type person and couldn't figure it out..... your average Joe isn't even going to try it if he doesn't get quick results.

 

If these do really take off and work well, I suspect people will use them and eventually they probably will be printing less photos. I actually feel guilty when I stand there and let them take my picture because the thought going through my head is that I know I never intend on buying the picture...you're wasting ink and photo paper. But as everyone has said, for everyone like me who doesn't buy, others do and they wouldn't employ an army of photographers on every ship if it wasn't profitable for them.

[SilentTraveller]

Even if the number of photos sold is low, they are only a segment of their overall department. I am sure they more than offset any loss on photo sales with the sales of videos, cameras, photo albums/scrapbooks, or printing of passenger personal photos.

 

Maybe the sale of photos is their "loss leader" and is done to get people down to the department to buy more profitable items.

[PurpleHays]

2

 

A

When I tried it, the results were mixed.

a) Even though my cruise card was swiped for the welcome aboard picture and the formal night picture taking, none of these pictures appeared.

b) Pictures taken at ports appeared

c) Some pictures taken of others in our family who had their reservation linked to ours, but without me or my spouse in them, also appeared. Maybe our faces are similar enough?

d) A picture of total strangers (to us) also was in the displayed group.

 

We had a picture of a family with my hubby in the very corner--just enough for the facial recognition program to register. We simple deleted it from our portfolio. All of the rest of our pictures showed up without problems. Sometimes they asked for our ship card, sometimes not.

 

I think the linked ones showed up simply because your reservations were linked. We cruised with my aunt and uncle one time, and their pictures showed up in our pile, with only a few in theirs.

[antsp]

If we calculate its costs 10c to print a phot the coat over a cruise would be approx $2500. If yor sell %15 of pics taken you are selling approx 3750 a cruise. 3750 X $15 is $56250. I think they will be covering there costs. I took an average pic price point at $15. The price to produce a pic may be even double but either wat its not a bad way to turn a profit.

[Nebr.cruiser]

that's a good point... they may not print ALL of that 25,000. I'm sure there are some that don't come out due to quality reasons. I was still a bit surprised by the "purchase rate" of 15%.

 

someone asked if they'd sell more photos if they dropped the price down to $10.00 each... he said NO. I'm sure they've analyzed the price points many times.

 

Well, they'd sell more to me! I rarely buy any of the $20+ photos; I'd probably buy 3-4 at $10.

[Nebr.cruiser]

We had a picture of a family with my hubby in the very corner--just enough for the facial recognition program to register. We simple deleted it from our portfolio. All of the rest of our pictures showed up without problems. Sometimes they asked for our ship card, sometimes not.

 

I think the linked ones showed up simply because your reservations were linked. We cruised with my aunt and uncle one time, and their pictures showed up in our pile, with only a few in theirs.

 

I used a photo recognition booth on the Navigator of the Seas with great results. We were on a cruise with 7 grandkids and they posed for a lot of photos--the photo recognition booth pulled up, as far as I know, all of our pictures, many of which we had not found on the photo walls.

 

I see that the new Royal Princess will have this technology. Here's hoping it works well. I'm tired of looking and looking for photos; I rarely buy anymore, though, if it's just us two.

[molme]

On our ship tour on the Coral in 2010 they told us it costs about 17 cents to print each picture. So if they are selling them for $20 they are making a huge profit. They really could afford to lower the price by half and still make a nice bit of money.

[PescadoAmarillo]

I thinks it's obvious they make money or they wouldn't be doing it. I think the real question is could they make MORE money doing something else with that much of the ship's real estate? That's the one that I often ponder.

[caribill]

On our ship tour on the Coral in 2010 they told us it costs about 17 cents to print each picture. So if they are selling them for $20 they are making a huge profit. They really could afford to lower the price by half and still make a nice bit of money.

 

17 cents is the cost of printing.

 

It is not the total coat involved including the photo staff's time, equipment cost, etc.

 

Yes, they still make a nice bit of money on each picture sold.

[Amuse Bouche]

I really could care less about their profit. However, I do care about the waste. Photo paper is not recyclable, and...how would you reuse photo paper? It has an image on it...

 

It's a shameful waste. I'm not going to balance out their waste by purchasing them tho. I do let them know I don't want a photo taken tho. So, there's my part. No paper wasted on me...

[chipmaster]

25,000 pictures taken doesn't mean printed

 

15% purchased sounds about right...

 

Nobody is in the money losing business or they'd quickly adjust the model. The cost of printing ( paper, chemicals ) is minsicule. Look at the GM of places like HP printer division :D

 

Its a seperate question about waste and ecology that is more troubling. But I think anyone who debates green and cruising might be a hypocrite of sorts as cruising isn't very green or ecology at all!

 

There are discussion about putting viewing stations and letting people just view the prints, but there is something imediate and alluring about just grabbing the picture versus online viewing that IMHO will yield even lower purchase rates. Plus the cost of digital kioks and picture management isn't that cheap...

 

They make money for sure, we can speculate all we want but they don't provide that kind of service or use that valuable floor space for loss center!

[AKman2495]

One of the problems of mass selling-photos or anything else is that you have to a lot of it to get a reasonable response. Marketers will tell you for cold call sales expect a 1-2% response. That means for every 100,000 pieces of "Junk mail", you will get 1000-2000 responses. That's why mailing lists are so important -with a good one you can up the response to 5%.

 

On a ship with a captive audience with appealing subject matter a 15% response is pretty good.....

[Amuse Bouche]

25,000 pictures taken doesn't mean printed

 

15% purchased sounds about right...

 

Nobody is in the money losing business or they'd quickly adjust the model. The cost of printing ( paper, chemicals ) is minsicule. Look at the GM of places like HP printer division :D

 

Its a seperate question about waste and ecology that is more troubling. But I think anyone who debates green and cruising might be a hypocrite of sorts as cruising isn't very green or ecology at all!

 

There are discussion about putting viewing stations and letting people just view the prints, but there is something imediate and alluring about just grabbing the picture versus online viewing that IMHO will yield even lower purchase rates. Plus the cost of digital kioks and picture management isn't that cheap...

 

They make money for sure, we can speculate all we want but they don't provide that kind of service or use that valuable floor space for loss center!

 

I'm not a hypocrit, nor am I a tree hugging fanatic...but there are extremes, like photos no one is going to buy. It's not like I'm protesting. As far as the 25,000 photos....if they take 10 photos of each pax, and you know you've seen 10 photos of you in the gallery...that's 25,000 photos. But, you can shrink that number by half, since most photos are two people. The singles and the families pretty much even out. So, that's 12,500 photos a cruise.

You shouldn't toss out name calling just because a person brings up a viable point. You yourself said it was troubling...sounds like we are on the same page then, so you would have to consider yourself a hypocrit.

I just brought it up because everyone can reduce the waste by not posing for photos you know you don't want. Like those awful photos with crew members in costumes.

[mikjr]

I just brought it up because everyone can reduce the waste by not posing for photos you know you don't want. Like those awful photos with crew members in costumes.

 

this is exactly what we do... we take the embarkation photo, because we usually buy it as a reminder of the cruise... but refuse all others! just that simple.

 

it just bugs me when the pirates block the gangway when you get off at the ports. I wish they'd stop that and move it off to the side.

[pablo222]

You will find that they reuse the paper. If they didnt make money they wouldnt do it

 

They use a regular mini-lab.

 

The paper is photo-sensitive, and delivered on a roll.

It's exposed, chemical processed, and cut.

Once it's used, that's it. It's done.

 

I saw them on Emerald, they were named things like Itsy and Bitsy,

but offhand, I can't remember the brand. It might have been Noritsu

[DoulaAnn]

Well, they'd sell more to me! I rarely buy any of the $20+ photos; I'd probably buy 3-4 at $10.

 

I'm with you. I would probably buy several at $10 each. I guess they would have to sell twice as many at that price just to break even, so they figure it isn't worth it. Guess I'll have to get less frugal if I want a picture.

 

Ann

[Day91]

I'm not a hypocrit, nor am I a tree hugging fanatic...but there are extremes, like photos no one is going to buy. It's not like I'm protesting. As far as the 25,000 photos....if they take 10 photos of each pax, and you know you've seen 10 photos of you in the gallery...that's 25,000 photos. But, you can shrink that number by half, since most photos are two people. The singles and the families pretty much even out. So, that's 12,500 photos a cruise.

You shouldn't toss out name calling just because a person brings up a viable point. You yourself said it was troubling...sounds like we are on the same page then, so you would have to consider yourself a hypocrit.

I just brought it up because everyone can reduce the waste by not posing for photos you know you don't want. Like those awful photos with crew members in costumes.

 

Boy, it appears you can't catch nuance in a poster's response. I was reading the thread, enjoying how positive and nuanced the conversation was proceeding, and then.....