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Published on April 16, 2008

The marketing of personal experience and tailor-making products and services to support a do-it-yourself trend among digital photographers is challenging the imagination of digital camera market leader Canon.

Consumers are backing away from spending money in photo shops and preferring to select, copy, format and print their own photographs at home. Canon Marketing (Thailand) is one of the first players in the digital-camera market to tap this behaviour by offering a total printing solution for selecting only preferred photos and printing them at home.

It has even developed software that automatically adjusts photos for clarity, as well as a website called Creative Park that offers downloadable pages with a variety of graphic designs on which consumers can paste their photographs before printing. The target consumers are children and young consumers.

All consumers need to access this package is any one of Canon's 11 printer models - with prices ranging from Bt3,000 to Bt10,000 - ink and special paper.

"We've foreseen gradual changes in consumer behaviour, and this will result in changes in the photo business," said Warin Tantipongpanich, senior director and general manager for consumer imaging and information. "We are perhaps the first company to introduce digital cameras that can be linked directly to printers, allowing users to print all of their preferred photos at home instead of going to a photo shop, and we've adjusted the software for five versions already," he said.

Some competitors, such as Apple, are also tapping the trend.

Warin said changes had been seen in customer behaviour in many other countries.

"The copying price per photo in Thailand is only Bt2 or Bt3, while prices in other countries are far more expensive, making consumers feel there is no price difference in spending money for printers, ink and paper at home. Also, consumers in those countries have more computer knowledge," Warin said.

The foreign boom has also created another market, for special printing papers, particularly in Europe, the US and Japan.

Canon recognised the nascent change in consumer behaviour in Thailand from growth rates of 15 per cent per year in sales of its digital cameras and printers. It also listened to visitors at trade shows.

Canon is now showcasing its new products in as many marketing events as it can join, either as a sponsor or an exhibitor, and is at pains to demonstrate those products' methods and benefits.

As changes in consumer behaviour gather momentum, the race to provide new home-printing technologies will resolve itself into the familiar struggle of the electronics giants to remain on top of the pack, but it may have devastating affects on Thailand's many photo shops.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation