Big W Shutting 30 Stores - Industry News

I wonder how this will effect Fuji ?

Many years ago Fuji made a decision to be in business with Big W and Harvey Norman. Although not exclusively they did offer up the bulk of their time and expertise to these major players . And of course why wouldn’t you ? They are the big dogs.

Although there are still a few independent Fuji labs around the vast majority have fallen by the wayside. Predominantly, in my opinion, unable to compete with these larger stores getting machines and consumables at a far reduced rate and more interested in the other products you may buy from them while coming in for your photos. The low 6x4 rate got consumers into their stores but devalued what independent labs could provide.

We did in fact used to be a Fuji Pro Lab for about 10 years before moving over to Epson. During this time the “raw cost” of a 6x4 was approx. 9 cents . That’s excluding rent-power-wages-packaging, so when a department store style lab runs a promo for 7 cents 5 cents or even 2 cents it makes you have a good hard think about the value in a product. Our raw cost now is actually higher than it used to be but we have a far superior product . I have no doubt that Fuji would be giving these big boys a substantial discount on their product – and I can understand why . If you have a customer spending 1 million dollars a year with you then you will give them a better price than someone spending $100 a year .

With the fall of Big W though I do wonder how this will affect Fuji moving forward. Whilst I have no doubt that HN will keep them in the black it does pose the question. Is it safe to have all your eggs in the one basket ? Is it wise to just have one customer who makes up the vast majority of your sales . As I said I don’t think they are in danger of shutting down but does this now give HN a great power over them given they control so much of their business ?

I really don’t know – only time will tell . It’s a good ponder though!

Tristam