Zookbinders to Sell Albums Direct to Public

I don't follow the Zookbinders blog or FB page very closely, but just stopped by to ask a question and was dismayed to find that they have plans to sell their albums (complete with design services) directly to the public. WTF? Are the album companies that we got in bed with and have supported up until now about to become our own competition?

Has anyone heard similar news from others?

Yeah, this is pretty "old" news. I saw a few complain about it on FB...

Certainly sucks but I never liked their albums anyway.

It's a logical move for any album company. They can be "premium" and only available through professionals, or they can target the much larger number people who want to do their own album more cheaply.

Copyright means no other company can use the images we create to make a profit. I tell couples i'm happy for them to make their own albums or use a book printing service, but designers or album companies are commercial and aren't allowed. In practice though, i'd never know.

Sell your images, your service, and built it into your business model. Demand for albums will continue to fall.

I get why they want to do it; clearly the pie has been shrinking considerably between couples who go the "Blurb" route or simply don't even want an album. But still, I'm not sure taking it out of the hide of your traditional distribution channel is the right path either.

I actually do pretty good with albums. My deal is that couples can either buy their disc or they get it free with large album purchases of $X+. It's a very substantial incentive to do an album. I probably sell a large album 66+% of the time and it's a good bit of revenue for me. I'd hate to see that evaporate.

I'm hoping that they at least offer a different grade of product direct and leave the premium stuff to us, but I don't know that they've been very clear about that.

I don't think people should buy things from us because of an artificial restriction. I buy contact lenses from the US because they're 1/3 the price my optometrist sells them for. I buy all sorts of little things from ebay for 1/10th their retail price.

Sell your service, your designs, and by making things easy for the couple.

This doesn't concern me too much. All of my wedding packages and even my portrait packages now include an album of some sort. I decided to do this so that *I* can control the quality of product leaving my studio and not have my clients print through places like WalMart or whatever. It's more work for me, but if this is important to you it'll be worth it.

PeaceFire wrote in post #13373549
This doesn't concern me too much. All of my wedding packages and even my portrait packages now include an album of some sort. I decided to do this so that *I* can control the quality of product leaving my studio and not have my clients print through places like WalMart or whatever. It's more work for me, but if this is important to you it'll be worth it.

same here.