Kmart gets a new image with photo center test - K Mart Corp.'s Auburn Hills, Michigan prototype store's Photo Image Center, photography supplies department

Discount Store News, Feb 1, 1993

The quest to attract a younger, brighter and more sophisticated consumer is plainly evident in Kmart's test of the new Photo Image Center at its Auburn Hills, Mich., prototype store.

Advanced technology, heretofore unheard of in a discount store setting, is utilized here to offer customers everything they could dream of in imaging and photography.

"It's everything anybody would need from an imaging point of view," touted chairman Joseph Antonini during a press preview tour of the store.

For example, the approximately 1,200-sq.-ft. department, located at the front left-hand side of the store in front of the customer service area and the Little Caesar's pizza restaurant, features a self-service machine for cropping negatives and making enlarged prints, business services such as laminating, facsimile and laser printing, and is selling one of the most advanced new photo technologies for the consumer, the Kodak Photo CD player.

Kodak's Create-A-Print machine is located at the front of the Image Center. It makes enlargements of 35mm film. A customer inserts a photo negative and selects a print size, say an 8x10 enlargement. The print is completed in less than five minutes and costs $5.97.

The Photo CD system allows the Image Center to convert conventional film negatives, slides and prints into digitized computer files. The files are permanently recorded onto a special compact disk. A single disk can store up to 100 "prints." Original photos can then be altered or combined with other digital images, text and graphics. The Photo CD player attaches directly to home TV sets, allowing image viewing as well as standard audio CD playback.

The Image Center is a test, and not likely to be included in every Kmart remodel or newly built store. However, it does provide a clear indication of where Kmart is going as it breaks out and expands high-tech product categories from its discount store core and places them in separate, highly visible locations with their own checkouts and the appearance of more customer service.

Each time a customer wants his 35mm film developed he receives both a set of prints in an album plus the "prints" on the CD for $22.90. The process takes two weeks to complete.

Less revolutionary, but still significant, the Image Center also offers one-hour, on-site photofinishing, will photo image transfers to T-shirts, and has a permanent portrait studio that's more sophisticated than the typical mass merchant location.

The Auburn Hills store brings all these services together with an expanded Kmart selection of cameras, film and photo accessories. Contemporary, Euro-look glass counters feature such high-end products as Bushnell binoculars and Minolta cameras.

The Portrait studio is operated by PCA International, an exclusive Kmart portrait licensee. It has outfitted the department with interactive photo viewing monitors so parents can see the photo as it is being taken and make immediate adjustments. Also, customized photo packages that allow a customer to select a package based on his or her financial means are available due to new technology. PCA International operates close to 1,000 permanent portrait studios in Kmart stores, and provides traveling service to others.

The center also features a complete run of gravity fed bins containing Kodak, Fuji and Kmart's private label Focal film. The department mix also includes single-use cameras, sports optical products, camera bags and other accessories. If anything, the center appears to carry a bit less of the mid-range priced cameras, in the $20 to $45 range, than is normally found at a Kmart store.