CONSUMER
Photo album web site launched
09-10-2000
by Paula Mythen
Ireland's first on-line photo album sharing and digital photography prints service Web site was launched on Monday.
The site (www.photobox.ie) offers customers the opportunity to add, enhance and organise their photos into a set of personal albums, which can then be shared on-line with friends and family. Customers can also purchase high quality digital photographic prints which may be ordered by credit card direct from a customer's album. The company has recently added complimentary merchandise to the site including mugs and t-shirts and hopes to expand the product range further by adding greeting cards and postcards.
PhotoBox launched its UK site, www.photobox.co.uk in May 2000 and already commands over 5,000 page impressions per day. The company has developed a strategic partnership with Fuji Ireland. The local agent in Dublin for business enquiries is Oisin Publications.
"We are delighted to announce the launch of our Irish site. We believe that people have a strong and lasting relationship with photographs. They are our common currency of memories and we eagerly anticipate their arrival," said Graham Hobson, Chief Executive, PhotoBox Ltd at the launch.
Real prints cost IEP0.55 each for a standard 4x6 and lower for multiple orders. Prints up to 20x30 can be ordered.
PhotoBox prides itself in the speed of delivery, 72 hours door to door, with an e-mail notification as soon as the order is dispatched. Album storage (50Mb) is free and customers only pay for the photos they want to print. Images can be uploaded via a browser, e-mailed or mailed on CD to the company.
Additional features include a public gallery where work by selected professional photographers is displayed and customers can choose to purchase prints. Customers can also open their album space to the public.
Digital photography is exploding with worldwide sales of cameras estimated at over 3.5 million units in 2000; the Irish figure is close to 100,000. Growth rates in sales are expected to be between 50 percent and 80 percent compound over the next few years, as prices decrease, Internet activity increases and the availability of print services accelerates, so will consumer migration from conventional to digital photography.
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