Costco Photo Labs Is Going Out Of The Store (2015)

[pedro47]

The word is; Costco is going to remove their photo lab dept from their stores in late September 2015 or October 2015. In place of the photo lab dept will be some type of photo kiosk system... more to come in the future.

 

[Luanne]

With almost everyone going digital I'm not surprised. I'm guessing it will be something like what is now available everywhere else - Fed Ex, CVS, etc. I like the kiosks as you can print out just the photos you want.

 

[tante]

Bummer we use it quite a bit to print photo books of our kids for the grandparents and things like Christmas cards. Hopefully this will not impact ease or quality.

 

[vacationhopeful]

I used a newer photo booth in Rite Aid drug store last month ... very easy to take my 2 memory cards (one from my cell phone and the other from my camera) and compose photos (with zoom in editing) and price the number of pics & basicly the size I WANTED NOW... plus for an extra cost, I got a CD disk of all my selected/printed photos for less than $3.00 plus tax. Each photo (regular size) was $.27 plus tax.

Loved it and loved the glossy photos: easy as all get out! ... made a great gift to my 89yo aunt who proudly showed the highlights of her NYC 3 night stay to all her visitors to her apartment .... a picture is worth a 1000 words.

Plus, it really helps her to know adventures are still possible and every guest who saw the pictures, were impressed she was REALLY doing NYC.

 

[gnorth16]

I use photobooks via Picaboo, Shutterfly or the 800 other companies out there and if I do print photos, all the editing is done at home and I go where is on my list of "to do's" and get it done there. No biggie for me.

My dad will be heartbroken as Costco was one of his afternoons away from my mom. He would go and hang out, edit every single photo at the kiosks, sample some food and have a hot dog - It was a great afternoon out of the house.

FWIW, they already have two kiosks up here at my Costco - the ones you can edit and order yourself.

 

[DaveNV]

Don't believe everything you hear, at least until it happens. My spouse is a career Costco employee who says they haven't heard anything of the sort about this in their warehouse. So this may be either a test in one local warehouse, or just a rumor.

In my opinion, a kiosk thing would be problematic in a warehouse setting. Who would manage it, how would it be operated, who controls the print quality, and so forth. If you think about it, nothing they have in the building that results in a take away product is self-service. How would they control theft or unhappy customers? Seems like a really under-developed idea. (Pun intended! LOL! )

As for printing only what you want, they do that now. You can even upload your data file from home to their website, and go in to pick up the print. The closest they have to a kiosk is a place where you put in your memory card or whatever, but somebody still has to handle generating the output from that.

I'll be curious to hear whether this actually comes into reality.

Dave

 

[travs2]

I have been making my photo books with a Blacks program but I heard that Black's is closing as well. Bummer....just when I have really begun to know what I am doing....my books from our trips are pretty awesome IMHO!

 

[dioxide45]

We use Shutterfly for photo books. Snapfish or Shutterfly for actual prints. Much cheaper than anything local.

This has been a long time coming, but I just don't see the local labs surviving. One of the last MotoPhoto stores in our area closed. I know of only one remaining around here. Dayton was/is home to their corporate office.

One hour photo killed the old days/weeks photo stores. Then digital came along and started to kill the one hour photo outlet. Online places started to take their business. The problem now is that people don't really even get photos developed. Even photo books are a pain and are usually looked at once and then stuffed in a drawer. With more and more people not even buying standalone cameras and opting to just use their phone, even those online photo processing companies will have problems.

 

[DaveNV]

New information: Spouse talked to the Photo Manager at the Costco warehouse just now. Manager said she hadn't heard about it until one of the photo department employees tried to take a photo tech certification course for work, and it was no longer available. She was told that meant things will be changing at Costco, and that the Photo Department as we've known them will be different.

Stay tuned...

Dave

 

[Brett]

New information: Spouse talked to the Photo Manager at the Costco warehouse just now. Manager said she hadn't heard about it until one of the photo department employees tried to take a photo tech certification course for work, and it was no longer available. She was told that meant things will be changing at Costco, and that the Photo Department as we've known them will be different.


Dave

I'm surprised local Photo processing labs are still around. I also use Shutterfly and Snapfish for my infrequent photo printing,

 

[SMHarman]

I'm surprised local Photo processing labs are still around. I also use Shutterfly and Snapfish for my infrequent photo printing,

So do I but I often send the 6x4 to a local printer from their service

 

[cotraveller]

I've been editing and formatting the few pictures I print at home and then uploading them to Costco. I suspect they will still offer that service even if they take the photo labs out of the stores. It won't be 1 hour service though.

For albums I use Mixbook. When I looked at the various photo sites for albums I picked theirs because it seemed to have the best page formatting capability. They are not necessarily better than other sites but I stick with them because I know how their site works.

 

[pedro47]

I've been editing and formatting the few pictures I print at home and then uploading them to Costco. I suspect they will still offer that service even if they take the photo labs out of the stores. It won't be 1 hour service though.

For albums I use Mixbook. When I looked at the various photo sites for albums I picked theirs because it seemed to have the best page formatting capability. They are not necessarily better than other sites but I stick with them because I know how their site works.

This service will still be offer.

 

[isisdave]

Now that Costco HAS announced that it will close all photo centers February 14, I wonder if TUGgers have a recommendation for printing of prints 11x14 or larger LOCALLY.

We're aware of many mail-order sites that do this, but while they make the prints within a day or so, mailing can take over a week to arrive. This was true of our trial of mail-delivered Costco prints: even though they were printed 100 miles away, they often didn't arrive for a week or more.

So I've been looking for something like CVS or Walgreens or ??? where I can get same-day or next-day prints 11x14 or larger. A lot of these places do up to 8x10 prints but advertise bigger sizes as "posters" -- I'm not sure what those are.

Do TUGgers have any actual experience with any? Thanks!

 

[Karen G]

Check with Office Depot or Office Max in their onsite printing dept. No personal experience with that size photo, but very pleased with smaller sizes.

 

[Brett]

Now that Costco HAS announced that it will close all photo centers February 14, I wonder if TUGgers have a recommendation for printing of prints 11x14 or larger LOCALLY.

We're aware of many mail-order sites that do this, but while they make the prints within a day or so, mailing can take over a week to arrive. This was true of our trial of mail-delivered Costco prints: even though they were printed 100 miles away, they often didn't arrive for a week or more.

So I've been looking for something like CVS or Walgreens or ??? where I can get same-day or next-day prints 11x14 or larger. A lot of these places do up to 8x10 prints but advertise bigger sizes as "posters" -- I'm not sure what those are.

Do TUGgers have any actual experience with any? Thanks!

A few years ago I used Office Depot for printing calendars and note cards - check and see if it fits your requirements

 

[pedro47]

Our closet Costco photo lab was in Richmond, VA. I will ask what they are recommending following the closing of all their photo labs.