GK Vale Targets Indian Online Market with Taopix Photo Commerce Platform

Friday, January 13, 2017

Press release from the issuing company

Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom - Indian photo retailer, G K Vale, has invested in the Taopix photo commerce platform to increase its online presence.

The Bangalore company first opened its doors in 1910 and has built a hugely successful business specialising in portraiture, wedding photography and photo personalisation services. The company currently operates 25 photo lab stores and has diversified into the camera retail market with 11 stores across the continent. The primary business employs 275 direct staff and 75 indirect employees work in the retail camera business.

G K Vale operates a centralised production facility in Fraser Town, Bangalore. The range of photo books, calendars, prints, wall décor and personalised gifts is manufactured across a wide range of equipment including a Canon DreamLabo 5000, Epson inkjet technology, a Durst Theta digital lab and Sawgrass heat transfer system.

The business has installed small format inkjet printers and Fuji Frontier S Smartlabs in 35 of its stores across India.

Says G K Vale CEO, Anand Sukarmar “We identified a business need for a new photo commerce platform that would give us better flexibility for template building and make it easier for us to deploy white label partner versions.”

“We were introduced to the Taopix team at Drupa who showed us some of the latest developments. We were particularly excited to see the focus on mobile, especially the Smartphone version. In our opinion, the Indian broadband and 4G markets are ready to explore and we see Taopix as the platform that will allow us to do just that. Online ordering combined with delivery to home will give us the potential for higher growth. The software is extremely easy from a consumer standpoint so customers are more likely to use it to order personalised merchandise.

“We can add any product we want to and I like that flexibility. We have around 400 products in the range, from pencil boxes to metal prints, and we couldn’t offer these through our previous platforms.”

We’re using social media marketing already and have a separate team for SEO. Having Taopix Online makes it easier for us to reach a massive potential customer base without the need for bricks and mortar premises. Our plan is to gain a successful foothold in the Indian market then expand into Asia. We’re bullish about the potential in our market and look forward to building on an already very successful business. ”

Steffen Haaga, Taopix Commercial Director, says “We’re delighted to have such a high profile company as G K Vale as a Taopix customer. It’s a professional, well-established and well-regarded company that is a perfect fit for our platform. I have high hopes for success and believe that the time is right to introduce personalised photo gifting to the millions of mobile users across India.”