Nowadays, photography is an integral part of our lives. it is now so common that it’s hard to imagine how people lived without the ability to capture memorable events in the photo. Now everyone has smartphones at hand with a camera, which can take beautiful pictures regularly with the help of apps like Instasize. However, the majority of people still desire high-quality beautiful pictures taken by professional photographers in a beautiful studio setting. And the majority of people usually consider that the life of photographer artists is a piece of cake. However, nobody of them really knows how hard it is to open the in-house photography studio to make professional e-commerce product pictures.
Despite the fact that at the present time the opening of a photo studio is quite a natural and promising business idea, it demands certain persistence and talent to keep this business floating and prospering in the ocean of cheap middle-and-low-quality photo content. E-commerce product photography pricing frequently disappoints those customers who have to deal with professional product photography for the first time. This is because of the pricing of the majority of little studios who include in their bills a lot of different spendings that frequently have nothing to do with their orders. Some inhouse studios raise their prices above clouds in order to pay the rent for a room used for photography. This business requires relatively small investments and can quickly pay off. But in most cases, when you as a customer appeal to small product photography studio you pay a significant percent over the regular price because this is how the studio covers its bills. Surely pictures you can get this way may satisfy your needs but the price will always be higher than you expect.
The required investment is one of the most important elements of the inhouse products photography studio. In order to open your own photo studio, you will need from $12,000 to $50,000. That’s exclusive of the costs of studying photography or taking supplementary online courses (see here) to enrich your photography skills. Pricing usually depends on the scale of the business, its interior complexity, city, ideas, and premises. For example, if you want to buy out the room in which the studio will be located, the amount will exceed $50,000. But $12,000 will be enough to open a photo studio. You can save on the room itself if renting it, hire a limited number of specialists, decrease spendings on the interior – carefully think over the locations that can be compactly placed on the rented area, and correctly select the decor elements by choosing budget options. You can also save money on the repair of the premises, picking up the room in good condition. By the way, this will save not only money but also time, allowing you to quickly start the project.
As for the choice between specific brands and models of lighting equipment and cameras, there are three options. The first one – to rely on your own preferences if you understand what exactly do you need and how are you supposed to use that equipment. Second – you find a specialist who is quite experienced in studio equipment. And finally, the third option – just buy the most popular models of the equipment needed.
Furthermore, if you decide that you will have a full-time photographer and retoucher, then you will also need a computer and programs for photos processing. You should also take into consideration the costs of photo experts’ work and include in the financial plan their services and profitable experience in the particular sphere of business.
Before an entrepreneur opens a photo studio in a particular city, the first thing do is to conduct a deep analysis of the market. How many working studios already have this city? What spectrum of services do they offer? What is their location? And finally, what are their prices?
Having received a complete picture of the photo studios market in the selected area, entrepreneurs can more deliberately and profitably create their business strategy. In numerous cases, the rigid preliminary research of the selected area conditions answers the question if creating a professional product photography studio can be lucrative for the entrepreneur.
One way or another, when opening a photo studio, you have to give customers something that the market studio market never had. In other words, find the unoccupied field and make it as profitable and attractive as you can. Otherwise, if the city is already full of various product photography studios it will be very difficult to find or come up with something new to offer to customers.
In search of truly fresh ideas, do not forget to look at the market of other cities, regions, and countries. Maybe you will find there what may be applicable in your situation and what your clients didn’t see yet. Anyway, or you can be inspired to create a completely new model of the product photography studio.
However, when being immersed in brilliant ideas, remember that they should be suitable for the majority of potential customers as any business should be oriented towards the pleasure of the customer. Find out how relevant your ideas, what are demands for existing services. This information is extremely important and will help to avoid unnecessary money spendings.
For many entrepreneurs, even for the most talented and persistent, creating their own product photography studio might be unreasonable as quite often these people use services of professional studios who are capable to provide qualitative photo content that can be placed everywhere, be it the landing page or the full-fledged marketing platform selling goods and products online worldwide.
The photos on the covers of glossy magazines and websites, the portfolio of fashion models and the tons of advertising printing products are nothing but the result of professional photo work in specially equipped studios. And it is only you who decide to use their services or create your own in-house studio.
To sum things up, except for equipment, every product photography studio needs decoration and necessary repairs to its premises. It is difficult to name the exact amount of money needed to open this business, however, each studio aims at its target client segment, respectively spending a different amount of money depending on the size, and the range of services preparing for the desired product photography studio.
Source: https://www.squareshot.co/
