Bengaluru’s G K Vale bolsters its online presence with Taopix

G K Vale, which operates out from a centralised production facility in Fraser Town, Bangalore offers a range of photo books, calendars, prints, wall décor and personalised gifts to its customers. The company currently operates 25 photo lab stores. The firm employs a wide range of equipment including a Canon DreamLabo 5000, Epson inkjet technology, a Durst Theta digital lab and Sawgrass heat transfer system. Plus, the business has installed small format inkjet printers and Fuji Frontier S Smartlabs in 35 of its stores across India.

The company was introduced to the Taopix team and its offerings at Drupa 2016. Anand Sukumar, CEO, G K Vale said, “We identified a business need for a new photo commerce platform, which will enable us to offer better flexibility for template building and make it easier for us to deploy white label partner versions.”

“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. The software is extremely easy to use from a consumer standpoint. So customers are more likely to use it to order personalised merchandise,” he added.

Steffen Haaga, commercial director, Taopix, said, “We’re delighted to have such a high profile company as G K Vale as a Taopix customer. We are bullish about the Indian market and believe that the time is right to introduce personalised photo gifting to the millions of mobile users across India.”

Sukumar said, “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.”

“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,” he said.

Established in 1910, GK Vale grew from a single photo lab store to 25 stores and diversifying into retail by launching eight exclusive Canon ImageSquare stores, three multi-brand camera stores spanning Bengaluru, Mangaluru, and Mysuru. The primary business employs 275 direct staff and 75 indirect employees work in the retail camera business.