Do people order prints anymore? Judging from various online services and service standsis at Costco, Walgteens, etc. they must be, but I don't see many recent phptos and photo albums is definitely a thing of the past. Maybe there's a small market fpr nicely produced photobooks. I haven't used my photo printer in ages.
Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: YES. Walgreens and Wal-Mart don't have 40 square feet of prime retail space devoted to photo printing kiosks just so they don't have to sweep the marginal flooring.
I do think there's still a lot of demand. Very many people still prefer physical paper photos over just viewing them online. As you say, the pervasiveness of photo printing services should speak to this.
An article I just found [1] from 2008 said 18 billion photos were printed in 2007 from services, and grew to 19.7 billion by 2008. Even if it has decreased since then, even with these very limited two data points (19.7 billion, and existing pervasiveness of photo printing services), I would assume the market is very lucrative.
PicPlum is attempting to simplify the process significantly. If they can capture even a respectable part of the market, I think it's sounds like a very viable business.
For some reason looking at photos on a screen is just not the same as looking at a printed picture. There's something organic about looking at printed pictures that takes you away. I remember how much fun it was to look at photographs (printed ones..) when I was younger. I'm 25 now and rarely get to do that any more.
Maybe it has to do with how much time it takes to flip a page ? Meaning that we look at pictures in less detail now because we like hitting the "Next" button..
Or maybe it has to do with the fact that things that are digital don't feel that 'real' ?
Also, there is the case where you want to put up pictures of your loved ones around you. Those would need to be printed as well.
I know that this is probably the wrong forum to bring these feelings up in, but I'm 100% sure that my parents and older people definitely feel this way.
I order photobooks as Christmas presents, as I get to travel a lot and other members of my family don't. It's quite a wonderful thing that takes very little time and is inexpensive.
That's exactly what I'm wondering. I mean, if you'd told me about the basic concept behind Picplum, I would've rejected it in a split second as entirely absurd. But they've been live since August 2011 and still going. Makes me wonder how many other good ideas like that I've rejected off hand.
My guess is older people who discovered that they have a camera on their smart phone and know how to use it or hipsters that want to be ironic and "print film" in their instagram filters.
Am I totally off?