Prepress
myPhotopipe.com Launches Program for Greeting Card, Gift and Stationery Retailers
Monday 21. April 2008 - Partnership Addresses $15 Million Sales Opportunity
myPhotopipe.com, Inc. (Pink Sheets: MPPC), a web-based online provider of digital photo processing and related services, today announced a program that will allow local greeting card, gift, and stationery stores to offer photo greeting cards to their customers.
“Using a dedicated web site containing more than 600 customizable cards, a retailer may offer its customers photo greeting cards without any capital outlay or inventory expense,” noted Peter Casabonne, President of myPhotopipe.com, Inc. “Customers simply bring their photographs to the retail store, select a greeting card, create their own sentiment and send their order in via the Internet. The finished product is returned to the retailer, usually with three business days, and includes envelopes. The program will allow retailers to focus on customer service and advice, while fulfillment is handled at myPhotopipe.com’s national lab in Atlanta, Georgia.”
To launch the program, myPhotopipe.com has teamed up with Portal, a manufacturer of printed greeting cards. Portal distributes to more than 15,000 retailers throughout the U.S. The companies expect to commence a pilot project in late Spring and, based on customer feedback and results, the program will be rolled out nationally in time for the late 2008 holiday greeting card season.
“We believe that this is a win-win opportunity for both retailers and card manufacturers such as Portal,” stated L. Douglas Keeney, Chief Executive Officer of myPhotopipe.com, Inc. “If a retailer has a computer, it is instantly in the high-margin photo greeting card business, with no new inventory requirements and absolutely no back-end work. Plus, our price points will be on par with the industry, making it an attractive proposition for the consumer.”
Photo greeting cards have surged in popularity as consumers have increasingly embraced products that allow them to personalize social expressions. According to industry trade group PMA, photo greeting cards represent nearly a $1 billion business that has doubled in size each year since 2005.
“Given an average order size of $64.00 for a typical photo greeting card order, we estimate that the sales opportunity from this partnership could exceed $15 million for the retailers involved,” concluded Keeney.