Diversification into Photos on Canvas Business Models is Running Rampant
Well, a recession begins, a year of time passes, and diversification is in the air as prevalent as the oxygen we breathe. Within our industry, it means that giclee printing companies are executing upon new strategies that leverage from their fine art giclee printing equipment, technology, and expertise. It seems like every day we are hearing about another giclee printing services firm expanding (from a services standpoint) from giclee art reproduction into the photos on canvas market.
The photos on canvas market is primarily online driven. Professional canvas prints are made available to professional photographers to reproduce their own work and for the general consumer looking to put photos to canvas (such as an amateur family photo). This market is now seeing an influx of competition from the traditional fine art giclee reproduction crowd.
The bottom line is that the “kill or be killed” mentality is hot and heavy these days. Let’s face it -most of these companies aren’t entering into the canvas photo market in order to expand – they are entering so that their giclee printing business in general will survive the economic storm. Such an entry will come with significant risk. In order to compete, these giclee printing companies must invest in a new and complex ecommerce website with special capabilities (and its going to cost a lot to compete with those who have been offerring photos on canvas for years). But having a website doesnt get you anywhere if nobody knows about it. Therefore, the canvas photo business model will require a substantial investment in consistent, aggressive advertising in order to drive traffic to the website. The advertising will compete amongst many others and better be compelling if any canvas prints are going to move. Furthermore, the current recession means that the market is shrinking.
Many entrepreneurs in general fall into the trap of thinking that its going to be easy to switch from one business model to another and suddenly its all going to make sense. To summarize – it aint going to be easy.