In the last five years Shutterfly has been “helping people share life’s joy” through a combination of acquisitions, innovations and integrated marketing techniques. Although printing pictures has been decreasing during the last decade, Shutterfly has increased its sales by 20% every quarter since 2009 and now holds a 50% market share in the photo products and services category.
Established in 1999, Shutterfly has survived several economic downturns and technological innovations. This was accomplished due to their willingness to take risks. The company acquired both Kodak and Fujifilm’s web photo-sharing businesses which brought with it 75 million member accounts. In addition to these acquisitions Shutterfly has expanded their brands from one to four—Shutterfly, Tiny Prints, Wedding Paper Divas and Treats. Nevertheless, Shutterfly CEO Jeffery Housenbold foresaw threats from new technologies like smart phones and tablets. In the last three years there have been more photos taken than all the time before and most of them by mobile devices. For that reason Shutterfly launched a new mobile app in December of this last year for people to not only order prints but also share photos; thus, making them competitive with the likes of Insagram and Flickr. Finally, in addition to Shutterfly’s acquisitions and innovations, their success stems from sensational marketing techniques. Between their eye-catching orange packaging, daily promotional emails and quantity discounts, Shutterfly has poisoned themselves for long term success.
Here is a video of an interview from CNN with CEO Jeffery Housenbold