Wal-Mart’s New Photo Printing Service Undercuts Apple, Others

September 26th, 2005 at 3:00 PM - News by Brad Cook

Wal-Mart has fired a new salvo in the digital photo printing war, dropping the price of prints at its store to US$0.15 each, with members of its Samis Club stores paying $0.13 per image. An article at The Wall Street Journal (subscription required to view) notes that the service, which turns around jobs in 48 hours, is a new low point for digital photo printing costs at retail.

In the online realm, Apple charges $0.19 per print through iPhoto, which uses Kodak for processing. Kodakis own Kodak Gallery unit charges $0.15 per image, a new price that was adopted last Thursday. Hewlett-Packardis Snapfish unit charges $0.12 per print, with an extra nickel per image to mail them to a customeris home. There are also bargain outlets, such as PhotoCheap.bizis $0.108 per print, plus $0.99 per order for shipping and handling, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Wal-Mart and Samis Club both offer one-hour photo printing at $0.19 and $0.17 per image, respectively, with the latter charging the same as rival Costco. According to The Wall Street Journal, printing images at home costs roughly $0.24 per shot for the paper and ink.