Small Biz Survival

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Business idea: photo scanning service

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Photo pile. Photo by Becky McCray

Families may have several generations of saved photo prints to sort through. Photo by Becky McCray

 

Legions of people over 55 have boxes and boxes of old photos. They’d love to have them in albums or scanned into digital format, but they may not have the time, equipment or experience. Enter photo organization businesses.

These are perfect for small towns and especially for younger people looking for a business that’s simple to start on the side.

Think of all the people who are downsizing to a smaller house and having to go through all their stuff. Then add in all the people who have inherited boxes of unsorted photos from parents. That’s a big target market.

The Sidney Morning Herald reported on one business offering this service in Australia.

The pair charge $55 an hour to organise prints into albums and $60 an hour to digitise prints and slides. Boomers account for 75 per cent of their turnover, with some clients happy to pay for up to 60 hours of service.

“Baby boomers have been our bread and butter – they see that value,” Morrison says.

“They are recognising you really can’t put a price on this stuff.”

You may already have a flatbed scanner built into your printer that would be enough to get started with, or you can purchase one specifically designed to work with photos, negatives and slides.

You’ll find more suggestions here at tocofi, The Original Instagrams – What to Do with the Box of Old Family Photos: Scan and Enlarge Them.

And here’s an article from Cathi Nelson specifically on scanning photos as a home business:

Scanning Photos can be a Great Home Business

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About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.

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