The new revenue potential within the traditional photo printing market is decreasing, but photo merchandise transforms those digital photos into dollars for service providers. This broad category includes items such as photo greeting cards, photo books, photo calendars, enlargements, and photo mugs. These items have caught the attention of consumers and retailers alike. Consumers like photo merchandise items because they make good gifts, and photo-centric commercial printers and retailers like them because they are high-margin products.

InfoTrends' latest forecast data projects that revenues for the U.S. photo merchandise market (including photo books, greeting cards, calendars, posters, and various novelty items) will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 22% between 2008 and 2013. Coming out of a difficult economy, all service providers are searching for double-digit revenue growth opportunities. By 2013, revenues for photo merchandise items in the United States are projected to exceed $2.5 billion.

In December 2009, InfoTrends published a research report entitled 2009 Photo Merchandise End-User Survey Analysis: United States. Of the 1,915 end-user respondents to this survey, about 25% had purchased photo merchandise in the past year. As outlined in the Figure below, there is a clear correlation between age and the propensity to purchase photo merchandise. Within the age demographic, respondents under the age of 35 were considerably more likely to purchase photo merchandise than their older counterparts. In addition, 44% of respondents with children under the age of 4 had purchased photo merchandise in the past year.