Day two of PMA was another day of advocacy for the scrapbooking industry. Lots of folks were curious about "What is scrapbooking" and how it applies to their photo businesses. PMA draws numerous international attendees who clearly weren't familiar with this crafing hobby and it was fun to sort of walk them through our magazines and explain traditional versus digital scrapbooking.

After my second day at PMA I've come to the conclusion that this show would best serve the needs of a retailer seeking to move into the digital service world. The digital scrapbooking product companies present all reported great shows. The traditional scrapbooking people have opportunity there but there needs to be more general education on scrapbooking in order to bring the PMA show buyers to our side.

If you are a retailer ready to make the step into photo services PMA would be a great show for you. You can find all kinds of equipment and software for scanning, printing, book binding and other imaging activities. There is a wide range of price point- under $2000 to get started with Lucidiom's Luci Connect and in up from there depending on the backroom space and financial investment you want to make.

Interestingly there may be an opportunity for scrapbook stores where the business for traditional photo stores are feeling the pinch- Printing photos. Photo processors are printing fewer photos, now that users have the choice to print select photos on demand. (Plus with digital you don't have to print all the bumbled photos of the ceiling or your feet).

However, because scrapbookers use prints in their pages it makes sense for a scrapbook store to have a kiosk where customers can print photos.  It  seems there are more print size options available and the price of the hardware is not off the charts.

And once you do decide to print photos, there are many places to go. Plans for creating a website with photo gifts and digital scrapbook pages are attainable with programs that provide retailer with the web and back room software There is an upfront investment but after that you pay an annual membership fee and a percentage of a sale.

In the meantime.... or if the photo arena is not where you want to be... Scrapbook stores should be reaching out to local photo processors. You have similar interests in that you want folks to print more photos. If you can work with your photo retailer to introduce your customers to new photo products, they can introduce their customers to photo crafting.

In fact, photo crafting is a term our industry should adopt. Scrapbooking is just one type of photo crafting. And photo crafting is a generic term that the non-crafting general public can embrace more easily.

On my way back home to gear up for Anaheim next week. See you all then--Beth