Is it profitable to open a photo studio?

As the number of entrepreneurs continues to increase, more and more self-employed entrepreneurs want to own a photo studio of their own. So is it profitable to open a photo studio? How to make money to open a photo studio? I will explain below Let’s learn more about it together. Is it profitable to open a photo studio_How to make money by opening a photo studio

Business experience you can’t imagine

There are many photo studios, and there is no shortage of them here

This photo studio Xiao Zhou, the owner of the studio, said that the photo studio now includes makeup, costumes, photography, and post-production, and my shop also has the same. Other photo studios in the market that take photos of documents only have one photography session. Just because of the different links, the product effects are completely different:

ID photos taken in ordinary photo studios are very old-fashioned, and can even be said to be very different from real people. The ID photos taken in your own store can be 100% identical to real people. Because guests who come to take photos will receive a form at the front desk, which includes detailed requirements for background color, expression, makeup, and post-processing. For example, there are three types of expressions: smile, smile, and seriousness. Post-processing is divided into several scales such as seriousness, sunshine, gentleness, spirit, and original appearance. This form will be handed over by the guest to the staff handling each filming process, who will ask the guest for their opinions and then operate it based on their professional judgment. The final careful trimming eliminates issues such as high and low shoulders and big and small eyes that cannot be solved by makeup. In the end, even the look will be done to satisfy the customer.

The price is expensive, 5 times that of its peers

Although the service provided by Xiao Zhou is very considerate, the price of taking a satisfactory set of ID photos is quite expensive, the lowest price is 100 Yuan/set (one version of photos), if the customer has other requirements, the price will increase. You should know that the price of ordinary ID photos in the current market is mostly 20 yuan/set. Will any customers pay for such a high price?

Xiao Zhou revealed that he is not afraid of this. In 2014 alone, he took ID photos for tens of thousands of private clients and nearly 3,000 for many companies. Someone took the ID photo. This number far exceeds that of any photo studio that takes ID photos. The reason is very simple. ID photos are widely used. They are needed for passports, job applications, and driver's licenses. Therefore, the market demand is huge. In addition, I can make customers more satisfied. Through the spread of word-of-mouth effect, more and more people recognize my store. many. Now, if customers don’t make an appointment two weeks in advance, they can’t take ID photos at all.

Young people are the mainstream, and corporate customers are indispensable

Xiao Zhou said that so far, young people are more likely to recognize this model, especially those born in the 80s and 90s. , those born in the 2000s and those over 35 years old rarely recognize this model. Customers under the age of 35 account for 95% of the total customers, while customers under the age of 28 account for 60% of the total customers.

The proportion of female customers is nearly 25% higher than the proportion of male customers, and most of these female customers are freshly graduated college students and female white-collar workers.

At the same time, Xiao Zhou revealed that many people think that the ID photo market only serves individuals. In fact, this view is a bit outdated. ID photos can also serve corporate customers. For example, a company needs to make access cards for its employees, or a company needs to make attendance cards for some exhibitors when it goes out to participate in an exhibition. These are the market for ID photos. There is also a particularly large invisible market, which is the photos of company leaders published in the media, and they are also very price sensitive. So I have been working hard to develop the corporate market. The current revenue ratio between private and corporate customers is 7:3. In addition, the purpose of opening up the corporate market is to further promote your business. After all, companies have a large number of employees and the spread speed is much faster than that of private customers. Facts have proved that Xiao Zhou's strategy is also correct. In the first quarter of 2015, nearly 30% of new customers were converted or introduced from corporate customers.

Moreover, hundreds of state-owned and private enterprise owners in Shanghai have made appointments with him to take image photos. Xiao Zhou said that in 2015, the image photo market alone is expected to bring him a net income of 300,000 to 400,000 yuan.

Turn your ID photo into a fashion blockbuster

Xiao Zhou said that unlike taking ID photos in ordinary photo studios, which only take ten or twenty minutes from entering to picking up the photos, in his own photo studio Here, taking ID photos is like taking a fashion blockbuster. For example, customers often spend 20 to 30 minutes in the styling session.

The guests who have finished styling are led into the shooting area, and the layout here is also different from ordinary roadside photo studios. The latter does not set aside a large space to take ID photos, but in Xiao Zhou's store, the total area of ??its five studios is more than 80 square meters. Xiao Zhou said that the shooting location is at least 5 meters deep, which allows photographers to better place lighting equipment, and good lighting is one of the keys to taking good ID photos.

After the customer has completed the shooting, he or she chooses the photo that they are most satisfied with, and then the post-production designer will refine it. Problems such as fine hair, high and low shoulders, big and small eyes, etc. that still cannot be properly solved during the makeup and shooting process will be finalized by the stylist, and the refinement in Xiao Zhou's shop even includes facial expressions.

Xiao Zhou said, “If (the guest) really cannot relax his facial features under the guidance of the photographer, we will adjust his demeanor. ?A customer who said that he had never been able to smile widely when taking ID photos found that in the final photo, the corners of his mouth were adjusted to be slightly raised.

Details win, so customers get value for money

Xiao Zhou said that he relies on details to make customers feel that spending 100 yuan to take a set of ID photos is worth the money. Please take a look at the following details:

1. After the customer successfully makes an appointment, the photo studio will send a reminder text message the night before the shooting, including the shooting time and precautions, and will also give the customer some warm suggestions. For example, go to bed early or drink a cup of coffee the next morning to get rid of facial puffiness.

2. The makeup department has prepared 10 or 20 sets of clothes for men and women, each with different styles, body shapes, colors and even collar shapes. If the customer wears inappropriate clothes that day, such as wearing a light-colored shirt by mistake while taking a ID photo with a white or blue background, the makeup artist will give clothing matching suggestions based on the customer's needs and characteristics. These suggestions will also take into account the guest's "special circumstances". For example, if he has a short neck, he will be asked to wear collarless clothes. He should not let these shortcomings he knows affect his confidence and relaxation.

3. Makeup artists will focus on the customers’ eyes during the styling process to make them look more energetic. Many clients have single or large eyes. These characteristics will become very obvious after being magnified by the lens, so they need to be adjusted carefully. Some "special circumstances" are again taken into account. For example, for a male guest whose ears are positioned far back, it would be difficult for him to expose his ears as required in previous ID photos. In Xiao Zhou's shop, he was asked by the makeup artist how he wanted to deal with his hair to expose his ears. (Hair) should be turned back to look more mature, and let down to look younger. ?Let customers choose.

4. In the study of foreign ID photos, Xiao Zhou found that the people being photographed not only looked good-looking, but also had more confident and optimistic demeanors, so he asked the photographer to control the demeanor of the guests. . Now photographers will learn how to use micro-expressions to analyze whether guests are in a relaxed state, such as the relaxation of lip muscles and the strength of muscles around the eyes to see whether they are really smiling or fake. Once they find that the guests are still shy or nervous, the photographers will chat with them to communicate. Even if it may be just a simple chat: Where is your home? What do you do for a living? In order to help guests relieve their tension, rhythmic music will be played throughout the shooting area.

Site selection is important, and business also has low and peak seasons

Xiao Zhou said that many people may not know that the business of taking ID photos also has low and peak seasons. Generally speaking, one year There are three peak shooting periods. First, the peak period is from December to February every year; second, there is a peak period from May to July every year; third, it is a peak period from September to October every year. Expect. These three stages are basically the peak seasons for students to graduate and for corporate personnel to leave and join the workforce, so the market demand for ID photos is huge at this time. At the same time, because this period includes many holidays, people traveling, learning to drive, etc. also need a large number of ID photos. The rest of the time is off-season. In order to balance the business volume, I usually focus on the corporate ID photo market during the off-season. For example, in the off-season of 2014, I successfully took image photos for 500 medical workers in a hospital in Shanghai, and the profit was no less than that of private photos. ID photo.

At the same time, Xiao Zhou revealed that since college students still have the greatest demand for ID photos, his store has chosen to be located in places where universities are concentrated in Shanghai. It is best to open it on the way students are leaving school, because they go to school early and many stores are not open, so they often do not pay attention to the stores on the roadside. On the contrary, when school is over, when they relax, they will pay attention to the stores on the street. If investors do not pay attention to this, it will be difficult to open the market in a short period of time.

In addition, Xiao Zhou said that since young people nowadays like to play WeChat, when investors first start to open a store, they might as well take some incentive measures after customers finish shooting, such as asking customers to send their photos to If you share your ID photo in your circle of friends, you can enjoy a certain amount of discount. Although you will make less profit, it will be beneficial to the store's early promotion. I used this kind of promotion method to quickly open up the market.

This is how the ID blockbuster is produced

1. The photo studio adopts an appointment photography model. Customers can choose a time period that suits them according to the appointment calendar published by the photo studio. WeChat ID to make an appointment.

2. After the reservation is successful, the photo studio will send a reminder text message the night before the shooting, including the shooting time and precautions, and will also give the customer some warm suggestions, such as going to bed early or taking the first photo. Drink a cup of coffee the next morning to get rid of facial puffiness.

3. On the day of the shooting, customers will prepare their makeup for half an hour to an hour after arriving at the store. Makeup for ID photos is also very important. It should be beautified to the maximum extent while retaining your personal characteristics. Girls in Guangzhou don’t pay much attention to facial shading when putting on makeup, but shading is a very important part when taking ID photos, which can highlight the customer’s contours and natural beauty. In order to find the makeup suitable for ID photos, their team also conducted various makeup tests. For example, various powders absorb light to different degrees, so they need to find the right powder.

4. After putting on makeup, it’s time for the most important part of the shooting. In the past, ordinary ID photos usually only used one photographic light and the front light was lit, which would easily make the face look bigger. Moreover, when taking ID photos while sitting, it would be easy to be stiff and the result would be unnatural. In this situation? In the style of snapshots, many people’s ID photos have become their own “black history”. In the studio of the photo studio, all customers take photos while standing.

5. The photo studio uses five photography lights. On the day the reporter visited, they added two new lights, which are responsible for lighting the front, rear, left, right, overhead, background shadows, etc., and use reflectors to adjust the lighting. the uniformity. In this way, looking from a distance, it really feels like shooting a fashion blockbuster. Of course, this kind of lighting is not to look "cool", but to reflect the natural light and enhance the facial contours in the finished film.

6After the shooting is completed, it is time to edit the photos. The guest and the photographer *** discuss together and select the most satisfactory photo, which will be retouched by the staff of the photo studio. Because it is an ID photo, the main purpose of retouching is to enhance the beauty and fine-tune the face. Do not over-retouch the photo to retain the customer's personal characteristics.

How to take good ID photos in a photo studio

Shooting background

Don’t underestimate the shooting background. Although the photo on the resume does not require a background. But for different companies, using different background colors may be able to leave a better impression. Huang Yihan came to a conclusion based on the opinions of friends who own companies, civil servants, foreign and private enterprises, and white-collar workers in the IT industry.

Photo backgrounds with other colors will leave a deeper impression on the HR when reviewing the resume than a resume with a white background, allowing the HR to remember the first interview and increase the candidate's chances of being hired. sex.

The background is gray, which is more serious and formal, and is suitable for applying to state-owned enterprises and foreign companies. The background is blue, which will make the subject appear older. It also meets the photo requirements of most civil servants, law firms and other related units.

The bud yellow background makes people look more approachable and can be used when applying for jobs in private companies and IT companies.

Makeup and hairstyle

The commonly used photo size on resumes is 1 inch. The basic requirement for taking photos for ID photos on resumes is to be clean and tidy. Because the ID photo used for your resume does not pay attention to personality, it is better to be dignified and elegant. It is best for girls not to wear earrings, necklaces and other accessories, so that the photo shoot will be simpler.

Whether you are a boy or a girl, it is best to use some light foundation as a base to make your complexion look better. Girls can wear some light makeup such as blush, eyeliner, and eyebrows.

Boys can focus on making their eyebrows thicker to look more energetic. When others see your resume, they will have a more positive impression of you.

When it comes to hairstyle, freshness is the most important thing for both men and women. The hair should not be frizzy. If there are some fine hair, it is best to fix it with hairspray to establish a simple and clean workplace image. Girls' buns are more mature than long hair shawls, and it is best to have it distributed in the middle to increase the symmetry of the face. Symmetric performance makes the face more beautiful.

Clothing

Depending on the occupation, wearing different clothes for ID photos on your resume will also give people a sense of professionalism. For boys, it is recommended to wear a suit when applying for jobs in banks, law firms, and airlines. If you go to the IT industry, you can try a loose cardigan shirt, which is in line with the temperament and atmosphere of the industry. You can't go wrong with a striped shirt and will work on your resume for many careers.

For girls, there are not many restrictions, as long as they are good-looking and atmospheric. You can also wear professional attire or suits according to different requirements to increase your sense of professionalism.

There are also some tips on dressing that can make up for your own shortcomings. People with shorter necks can wear collared shirts. Open the buttons of your shirt to expose your V-shaped neck, making your head and neck look longer. People with long necks can use a stand-up collar to reduce the visual length.

Glasses and styling

Image is also a key factor for companies to recruit employees. Many surveys have shown that people with beautiful faces and images are more likely to be admitted than people with similar conditions in other aspects. Face shape is now a must-see aesthetic standard for many people, and glasses can well modify the face shape.

Wearing round-framed glasses makes your face look smaller. Square-frame glasses can make small faces look larger, and are especially suitable for boys with smaller faces to increase their aura. Glasses can also make your glasses appear larger.

If you want to be extraordinarily successful in the resume photo session, you can also take some relatively personalized ID photos. When girls take photos, they use a hair dryer to blow up their hair, giving them an elegant and soft look. Girls can also wear a young braid to give themselves a natural sense of innocence.