Ways of seeing

It has the look and feel of Starbucks, promises the service of a McDonald's and hopes to rake in a turnover of Rs 140 crore in its fifth year of operation.

But Dr Photo, the new age photo lab, has nothing to do with burgers and coffee, though it promises a service similar to the multinational retail chains. As a consumer, you can phone Dr Photo's toll free number to get your film roll picked up.

If you own a digital camera, one of Dr Photo's denim-clad service boys will arrive with a mini USB hard drive to help select and order photo images and return with the prints later. In case you are not at home, expect to get an email or SMS to say the pictures are ready.

To cash in on the retail boom and capture a slice of the Rs 2,500-crore photo hardware and services market in terms of value, Dr Photo is the latest one-stop photo studio chain set to sprout across the country.

In the next 24 months, promoters Ajay Mehta and Hemant Sharma plan to start at least 40 such Dr Photo stores with an investment of Rs 80 crore.

The photo shops, launched under Zanis Imaging Pvt Ltd, will come up in major metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

Dr Photo's first store was inaugurated in Delhi earlier this week. Another five are in the pipeline in the city.

But how is Dr Photo, whose marketing spiel rests on catchlines like "We're positive about every negative", different from the existing neighbourhood photo lab?

"We've positioned ourselves as the biggest stockist for photo equipment with over 90 camera models priced between Rs 500 and Rs 70,000. Besides, we offer professionalised service without any extra charge to bring volumes to the business," says Hemant Sharma, director, operations, Zanis Imaging.

That is not all. Dr Photo is also looking at customer loyalty programmes. "We have various discounts and loyalty programmes geared to make them come back to us," says Sharma, former technical head of Microsoft, Asia, and founder-director of the Rs 80-crore Trisoft Systems, an enterprise consulting company.

According to Ajay Mehta, Zanis is investing Rs 75 lakh per store in digital technology. "Worldwide, digital camera sales are doubling while the analogue camera sales are stagnating. In India, digital camera sales is growing by 100 per cent every year."

Mehta is a third generation photo equipment expert from the Mahatta family and heads the Rs 80-crore family-run enterprise MCC group's distribution concern. The group is the exclusive distributor for US-based Polaroid Inc and Canon Inc (camera division) of Japan.

With an eye on servicing its clients, Dr Photo promises to act as a courier too. "We will take on the headache of sending copies of pictures to your friends and relatives in Ludhiana or in London. "Most of us keep planning to share the pictures we take, but hardly ever get around to doing it," says Sharma. Dr Photo will take responsibility of shipping pictures for its customer for a charge.