Kodak has signed a new exclusive Retail Photo Services agreement with Officeworks, Australia’s largest retailer of office supplies.
The ‘multi-year agreement’ (that would be two, I’m guessing – it’s apparently ‘commercial-in-confidence’ information!) will see Kodak photo printing in all 137 stores around Australia. At the centre of the deal is the installation of new Kodak Adaptive Picture Exchange (APEX) dry lab equipment and technology.
This announcement follows an ‘in-depth competitive assessment by Officeworks to select the best partner to drive category transformation in its Photo and Print & Copy departments’. Kodak says it was selected after demonstrating the vision and ability to respond to changing consumer needs, while driving increased category growth and maintaining Officeworks ‘Lowest Prices Everyday’ position in the market.
Kodak has been in Officworks outlets since 2005. The new agreement will see existing Kodak equipment upgraded to provide photo and printing products such as photo books, personal greeting cards, canvas prints and more.
In 2008, Officeworks was the first Australian retailer to offer a dry lab print solution in all of its stores via the Kodak APEX dry lab system. Kodak says this is ‘a more economical, faster way to print photos using no chemicals or water therefore reducing the environmental footprint, and representing a major improvement to the industry.’
So there will be no improvement in the quality of prints coming out of Officeworks. Good news for the specialty photo shops .
The Kodak arrangement at Officeworks seems substantially more successful than the HP deal at K Mart. Looked around a K Mart photo section the other day and it was pretty well dead in the water!
Can’t have been too hard a decision for Officeworks to sign up again.
And yep, Yvonne agree completely, although the new photobook thermal solution is impressive and you may see that at Officeworks?