Hi – this is Mark Zucker.  Let me first apologize for last night’s post which had a very unprofessional and confrontational tone in defense of our new online business to consumers.  It was written by one of my colleagues who had been working way too many hours, and I regret the message (and tone) that was broadcasted.  That said, as the owner of Zookbinders I take accountability for this mishap.  I would like also like to share my thoughts and hope to clarify our intent:

Our industry has undergone some major changes over the past few years. 70-80% of today’s brides now contract for a ‘disk only’. Many of the photographers that offer this “shoot and burn” service, have no interest in making albums, or doing anything other than shooting the event.  Because of this, we’ve been getting a lot of calls from brides over the past few years asking if we could make their album.

Before launching a direct to consumer business, we did a lot of research. Over the past few years here’s what we learned: there are 2 types of brides:

1 – Brides that want to be serviced, and want their photographer to design and deliver an album.  These brides are willing to pay a higher price for the higher level of service, and are the photographers that Zookbinders has serviced for many years.

2 – Brides that want to ‘do it themselves” and pursue contracting for a ‘disk only’ as the most affordable route.  Many of these brides plan to get an album at a later date, but haven’t necessarily figured out where to go.

You service the first group, and deliver quality photography and album design that are presented in high quality albums.  I know these clients appreciate the fact that YOU do all the work for them, and are pleased with the end product.

Unfortunately for all of us, the 2nd group is much larger.  Because of the huge increase in the number of event photographers (post digital), this trend has wreaked havoc on our industry.  There is less work for the ‘full service’ photographers who intend to ‘finish the job’ with an album.  We have watched many photographers who’ve been in this industry for a long time close down their storefront studios, move their businesses back into their homes or close down entirely due to lack of work.  This has been painful as many of these photographers are incredibly talented, AND are great people too.  Many of them have been clients since we started up in 1995.  For those that have survived, we have watched their volume drop and have tried to help them by offering products at more modest price points while trying to help them with marketing ideas and other ways to attract new clients.

The reality is that photographers are less busy.  The vendors that support them are also less busy.  Over the past few years, there are local labs in every major city that no longer operate. In the past 18 months, 3 of the largest album companies that serviced our industry for 20+ years have shut down.  Unfortunately there will be more labs and album companies shutting down over the next 12 months.  I have devoted 16 years of building this business, and Zookbinders will not be amongst them.
The trend towards hiring for “disk only” has left a large amount of “album-less brides” in its wake.  These are brides that have a disk, and no place to go to have a quality album made. Over the years, we’ve referred many of these brides to established full service photography studios, but they’re mostly interested in spending less $ – so they either find a cheap album online… or do nothing.

Launching a direct-to-consumer business was a difficult decision for us, but we feel confident that our new business will not impact the photographers that Zookbinders has worked hard to service for many years.  We believe that the clients that you serve (who want a higher level of service) are not interested in the DIY approach.  The fact that we’re now selling to brides is a reaction to the way our industry has changed.  There are now 2 clear choices for brides: they can hire a photographer who will provide full service (including an album), or contract for “disk only”.  This is the new paradigm, and we are positioning ourselves to serve both markets.

Zookbinders will continue to innovate and do everything possible to not only offer great products and services to pro photographers as evidenced by a stream of new products and software solutions to help photographers meet the demands of their customers and remain viable. This past January, we offered an album design service that quite frankly surprised us with how many photographers are using it – the reason for this is that we create a customized shopping cart for each album we design, and this is makes it real easy for the brides and their parents to buy additional albums and even frames.  We’ve heard great feedback from photographers who have not only been able to increase sales, but have been able to offload album design, which is very time consuming and allows them to focus more on getting hired.  This is an example of the strong commitment we still have, and always will have to the professional photographer.  I thank you for your support and for listening – Mark Zucker