Artcraft Camera & Digital Austin TX

Todd Fitzgerald's got photography in his blood. From the age of 5—when he saw his first B&W print appear like magic in a tray of developer—he was hooked for life. From that point on, Todd pretty much grew up in the store owned by his father, Glenn (Glenn Fitzgerald purchased Artcraft Camera in 1972). As a youth, Todd helped out at the sales counter, making his first sale at the ripe old age of 8. It was a red Canon Snappy, he says—and he realized he was destined to be a part of the photo retail business. "It felt right—it was part of me," Todd explains. His teen years were spent helping out after school and on the weekends, and as he grew up, Todd says he spent more and more time at the stores.

Now 35, Todd's started the transition of running the business as Glenn transitions out (read: retirement). For the past two years, Todd's been pretty much running the business, which consists of the flagship location in Kingston, NY, and two other locations, one in New Paltz and the other in Poughkeepsie, NY.

The name changed to Artcraft Camera & Digital about five years ago, when digital hit in earnest. They are toying with another name change, since they've added a number of niche departments, such as custom matting and framing and a digital printer. Todd's brother, Shawn, runs the family's other business—a wholesale photo operation.

Todd claims that it is the employees that have made Artcraft what it is today. The staff are dedicated. All totaled, there are 33 employees between the three locations. Gerard Burgher has been the lab manager at the Kingston location for 26 years, overseeing all photographic production at that store. Store manager Rich Levine has been in that position for three years; Ian Wickstead, the New Paltz location's store manager, for four years; and Jessica McKeown, the store manager of the Poughkeepsie location, for nine years.

Qualified Customers

Artcraft's Kingston location is located in a strip mall with other local shops. "We're in the local business district in Kingston," he explains. All of the big-box stores are on the other side of town. Nearby towns include Woodstock, Saugerties, and the Hunter and Windham ski areas. Plus, neighboring New Paltz has a number of colleges.

Much of Artcraft's customer base is made up of educated, middle- to high-income consumers who live in upscale neighborhoods. The customer makeup demands a certain level of knowledge and experience in the photo market. "I cherry-pick every camera line for my customer base," says Todd. "We find our customers trust us because of our history with them.

"We qualify customers to cameras," he continues. "What do you shoot? From how far away? What do you do with the photos? [We ask this] even before we pick up a camera to show them. For a DSLR, we ask if they have existing lenses from a film model."

As his customers are so educated and can easily do research online, once a replacement model comes out, Todd pulls the previous model off the shelves. For example, when Canon introduced the EOS Rebel XTi, they pulled the Rebel XT; when Nikon added the D40x to its line, they pulled the D40. It's for that same reason that Artcraft doesn't carry entire camera lines in each and every price point.

Discontinued stock, close-out items, white elephants, and outdated film all go to the eBay room. Handled by staffer Marisa Robish, items to be sold via the business's eBay storefront are shot and catalogued. Todd explains that there are also small-ticket items such as darkroom supplies that they do well selling at full retail price, because many stores have cut out their darkroom stock completely. With the recent redesign, they did cut back on darkroom supplies, but only by about a third. They're still doing quite well with Ilford and Kodak papers, chemistry, and other darkroom accessories. The darkroom supplies were moved off the main salesfloor to a room accessible by customers that features a large sign overhead welcoming customers into the area.

Expansion Into New Ventures

While they were completing their redesign, Todd says that they realized the heights of the display units were too high—you couldn't see over them. By lowering the shelving units to only four feet, the space looks much more open and allows most customers to see across the entire store with one glance. The aisles are wide, easily accommodating strollers.

The color scheme was also changed with the recent remodel. A warm plum color now covers most of the walls, which is more inviting than the previous stark-white paint.

Customer reaction to the changes: "WOW!" Todd says it was a no-brainer, since 70 percent of the customers walking through the doors Monday through Friday are women, who appreciate the changes.

Custom mat-cutting and framing was added just after PMA this year. "We knew we wanted to do it earlier," Todd says, explaining that they finally took the plunge this year. Artcraft's Kingston location now houses a full selection of mat and frame corners and has installed a Wizard International CMC (computerized mat cutter), as well as the equipment to cut their own glass and mouldings.

When we visited with Todd, they'd already completed the addition of a design center in the Poughkeepsie location and expected that the design center in the New Paltz location would be finished by mid-summer. The design centers will consist of a graphic designer, hired to create logos, business cards, stationery, and other such items. "We're putting together a portfolio now," Todd says. "As we reinvent ourselves, we see other small businesses are going through transformations as we did. We already have their photo business." His plan is to leverage the loyal B2B customers who already come to Artcraft for all of their photo needs with the new printing products they're able to offer. One-third of Artcraft's current customer base is made up of commercial and business accounts.

"We see a very big opportunity here in Kingston with the document portion of the business," he adds. The other competitors for this type of work are located six miles away—and he notes that that's six miles of heavily congested traffic.

The Xerox DocuColor 240 functionality allows it to output business cards, greeting cards, trifolds, brochures, signs, magnets, printed envelopes, and more. That's in addition to the photobooks and other photo-related output that has been touted by the manufacturers of these printers. "We see a very big increase in the business, to B2B, in what we're doing now," he says.

Willingness to Learn

Todd looks to what others in the industry are doing for ideas in building his business, and he's not shy about saying so. He realizes what a valuable resource other retailers can be for one another. "There's a lot of support out there—we're able to stay ahead by using PMA, IPI, and other dealers and picking up a phone," he says. "I'm not the smartest guy in the photo business, but I can find them and learn all I can."

When he was debating whether or not to add the custom framing, he says a trip to Florida to visit with L.B. Ainsworth was a necessity. The idea to change from white walls to a more inviting color came from Gaby Mullinax, whose own store, Fullerton Photographic, was designed to appeal more to women. When he wanted to spruce up the kiosk area, Todd—who had previously been to Allentown, PA, to visit Dan's Camera City—decided that Artcraft's kiosk area, unlike the Dan's Digiprint Lounge (which is off the main floor), should be visible and accessible from anywhere on the sales floor. But he still wanted to do something special. So, with a little ingenuity and a $400 canopy from Target, he brought attention to the kiosks (while giving customers the feeling that the area is more private), decreased the amount of glare hitting the screens (the kiosks are located near the front windows), and increased sales (average sales immediately increased from $7 per order to $23). Why? Because the canopy made Todd's customers feel more comfortable in the space, so they spent more time there. The half day spent setting up the canopy, netting, and white lights was well worth the increase in revenue he's seeing as a result.

Todd also utilizes the available space on the counters the kiosk terminals sit on—as well as in the netting that sweeps around the canopy's supports—to display product, from camera bags to photo gifts. A coat rack and small kid's area complete the section.

Artcraft is always looking for feedback from its customers as well. Todd says customer feedback is the best way to learn about your business. "Don't be afraid to come up to your front counter or walk outside and ask customers if they've had a good experience," he says. Even if the experience was bad, they appreciate that he cared enough to ask.

One-Stop-Shop

Artcraft is a full-service photo retail store and lab. They run Noritsu machines in the lab, including E-6, C-41, and B&W processors and Noritsu minilab units. They've been offering wide-format printing for about 15 years. Currently they output the wide-format prints on an Epson 10000 Pro and 9800 wide-format printers. Todd says the printers work very well with virtually any media. He says about 60% of the wide-format output is B2B, with 40% retail. The majority of the B2B work is signage and banners. He doesn't consider Artcraft a sign shop since they limit the media range to paper and fine-art media—no vinyl. About 70% of the mounting business is B2B, and Todd notes that the addition of the custom framing increased the mounting work to the point that it has brought a "tremendous return."

Todd explains that Artcraft is "doing rather well" with shoebox scanning. He says, "It's kind of surprising—I didn't realize how many shoeboxes [of prints] are out there." He says the service has had a great return on their investment in the Kodak document scanner they use for the scanning (one of the smaller models that Kodak makes, under $1,000). It only took them a handful of orders to pay for the scanner, and the unit saves a lot of time.

Todd also says the shoebox scanning service "has a true value." The ability to digitize the millions of photographic prints that are sitting in consumers' homes is not only helpful to them for archival purposes, sharing, or creating photo gifts—it's also an easy way to increase revenue. He also feels that consumers are choosing shoebox scans as their method for printing. Artcraft has many customers who print each and every scanned image.

He doesn't think it's too late for others to get into the game. Todd figures that in five years, there will be a new generation of consumers with a shoebox filled with prints that they want scanned, whether it's people who have prints and their files were not archived well or were lost or damaged, or they received prints from friends and family and want to have a digital file of the image, too.

Web Presence

One of the biggest projects that Artcraft has yet to do is revamp their website. "As we're rebuilding our image of the store, we'll be doing so on the web," he says, "It's not about how many pages are on your site, but how fast your customers can print via the site." Consumers want to be able to print within one or two pages after landing on a website.

"If you aren't in the web-based photographic printing [arena], you'll be out of business," he explains. Cameras bring in the customers, but it's accessory sales and photofinishing that are profitable.

He's hoping that with a site redesign, overnight orders will increase. And, as someone who does much of his purchasing and research online at night, he knows there are plenty of consumers who do the same. "I'd have a tough time if I couldn't use the internet for purchasing," he says.

Around the time this article hits your countertop, the folks at Artcraft will be holding their grand reopening, celebrating not just the new additions to the business, but the continued excellence in customer service and support.