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Back to School - part 3 of 1 2 3 4 5

Published 01/08/2009

Another route is to avoid schools! It's well known that the amount spent on children's photographs drops off with age - the most with babies, the least with teenagers. So, look towards nurseries and playgroups. This is the market we mainly work in.

Playgroups are normally run by parents or by local authorities. They are 'not for profit' groups, but are always trying to raise money. Photographs are one of their usual sources - and, as such, will again expect 10%-30% commission. The spend per child is higher, and the packs often have a wider range of price - from under £10 to £50 or more. Many also try to sell wall prints, canvasses and acrylics. One of the most popular items are key-rings! Again, parents normally expect proofs of the image or images - and will return their order with payment. Keeping track of payment is a key task - and it's not uncommon to get bounced cheques. We offer payment by plastic, and by late November it's the normal payment choice. It is also quite important to watch your bank charges - paying in large numbers of cheques can be very costly, and often banks limit the number of cheques per pay-in slip (my record is 22 pay-in slips in one bank visit!).

Nurseries are normally privately owned, or are part of chains. Chains normally have deals with large school photography companies, so are harder to secure. The money is more important to them - so the commission is usually higher.

In order to cope with the differing commissions requested we offer a range of packs that vary in price depending on commission.

Private nurseries normally have slightly more affluent families, so some packs might contain bigger prints and be a little more expensive. We have had some success with graduation photos when the children leave to go to primary school. We bought gowns from a company in the USA for little more than £10 each. A word of warning - never do the photography on the day of the graduation as there are more cameras than people at them - and your sales will be poor. We have even had some of the nurseries use our order sheet as the actual graduation scroll.

If the children have left the nursery by this time, we normally have to receive the order direct and ship back to the parents.

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