The Real Social Media

Gavin Stoker profiles Glasgow-based wedding and social photography print and album specialist Loxley Colour, celebrating a half-century

The Real Social Media

Subtitling itself ‘Professional Imaging Solutions’ Loxley Colour devises products to help portrait and wedding photographers stay contemporary, relevant and sales-worthy in a very competitive marketplace. Like any business worth its salt Loxley has fully embraced all aspects of the digital era and offers an online ordering service which it claims boasts the UK’s fastest turnaround. Simply visit its website and you’ll see Loxley Colour has an almost overwhelming amount of solutions on offer for today’s professional photographers; from framed prints with hand cut mounts through to their market leading Bellissimo and Artemis album brands as well as coffee table books, box frames, desk block duos, edge prints, aluminium wall art and canvas displays. “With the software we have – ROES and LDP – people are able to upload their JPEGS, pick a product and see how it will look online before they actually order it,” reveals Sales and Marketing Coordinator Christopher Kay, who has been with Loxley Colour since it’s early days.

“The message we want to get across is that we want to work with our clients and try to help them achieve their goals in an efficient and simple way.” Loxley Colour takes part in touring road shows and holds marketing & training seminars for up to 100 photographers at a time at its Glasgow HQ. These seminars are aimed at not only existing business’s but also new aspiring photographers looking to make a name for themselves in this highly competitive market. Many of their speakers are top names in the industry and having such a facility allows people to travel from far and wide including most of Europe. Loxley can be found hosting stands at Focus on Imaging and the Societies’ Annual Convention amongst many others. Close bonds with all the major photographic associations have enabled Loxley to remain focused on clients’ needs and develop an ever expanding range of products and services to help them not only satisfy the demands of their own clients, but keep ahead of the game. “We’ve always strived to enable photographers

to achieve extra profit, in turn offering true value for money.” “We know it is wedding & portrait customers who have helped grow our business and this is where our focus remains,” admits Chris. “There are more and more photographers coming into the industry, thinking this is an easy vocation when we all know it’s not. We are here to support them and will continue to do so in many new and exciting ways. Since the recession people have had to work a lot harder and smarter to get the same profitability.”

A catalogue of innovations

To help those both new to the profession, plus established names who are having to work harder to maintain their share of the market, Loxley Colour is spending time promoting new products to give them inspiration.

“There is still money out there that clients want to spend on family portraiture and weddings – the confidence is coming back, slowly but surely and our focus is to find ways of helping our clients regain their confidence in this unique industry. Times have changed and there are many things that can be done to drive everyone forward. As long as photographers remain focused on that and we keep our focus on bringing them new products and helping them to look after their business, we see a bright future.” The great criticism of digital has been that it’s stopped people printing photographs as much as they used to. For wedding and portrait photographers that’s never decisively changed. “No it hasn’t,” agrees Chris. “We identified that we had to find a way to perpetuate printing in its various forms and that has been in the form of bespoke software, new imaging products and a very competitive and well established range of wedding and portrait albums – anything that will assist the photographer in up-selling.

We’ve always strived to enable our clients to reach new heights in their field. We operate an intensive R&D program and are always thinking what unique product or service comes next before the market stagnates.

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