"Today about 40% of US consumers are aware of the ability to personalize or customize photo books or cards or stationery products so the US growth rate has slowed a bit," RPI CEO Rick Bellamy explained to PrintWeek in an interview about the acquisition of Paro Group from JP Media Group.
"We’ve been looking at the European market for quite a while and there are a lot of similarities between the US market and the photo merchandize or photo personalization market in Europe. They are a couple of years behind, really, in what I term consumer awareness and the ability to customize products. In Europe, awareness is only about 20% so the growth rate is still going strong."
Bellamy would not comment on whether the company is considering additional international expansion but did say the market in Australia for personalized print is strong, adding that Latin America is a few years behind that.
For the past 30 years RPI has built a strong business in US as a private label provider of photo books and other products for companies ranging from Café Press, Memory Lane and Snapfish to retail stalwarts such as Wal-Mart.
Bellamy expressed confidence in his company’s ability to maintain market share, but did not deny competition is increasing, though not from traditional printers entering the space. Instead he suggested there was more local competition from traditional photo development companies looking for new revenue opportunities following the rapid decline in film-based development.
Under the deal, RPI will transition the Paro Group brand, including Paro Printing and Paro Books, into a subsidiary called RPI-Paro. Paro’s executive management team and more than 50 employees will join the new business and Bellamy said he doesn’t expect any problems with integrating a European company into operations.
Jan-Paul van den Hurk, owner and chief executive officer of Paro Printing seemed to echo that sentiment. In a statement announcing the acquisition, he said. "RPI is committed to making strategic investments that spur continued innovation and provide long-term value for our customers while moving the industry forward. We are thrilled by the new possibilities and together we are poised to become one of the world’s leaders in the mass customization industry."
Personalized consumer product sales remain very seasonal, Bellamy noted, with many of the company’s consumer-facing clients doing huge business during the holidays. But in a time when many printers have been hit hard by the effects of the economic slowdown, personalized on-demand print products have also proven to be surprisingly recession-proof, as more consumers forgo expensive gifts in favor of giving things that are far more personal - such as photo books.
RPI boasts 75,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 18 HP Indigo presses, making it a top 10 producer on HP Indigo in the US and in the top 20 globally. Bellamy said the company also features Xerox and Océ equipment, adding the Paro Group has HP Indigo and Océ printing.
