Jessops to snap up business on Grafton Street

Photographic StoresOne of the world's largest photographic chains has opened the first of 40 shops it plans to develop all around Ireland. Kate McMorrow reports

Nine-thirty on a wet Saturday morning and already the new Jessops store at 111 Grafton Street was filling up with photography enthusiasts browsing around the display cabinets.

The shop is the first of up to 40 outlets planned for major towns and cities around the country. Selling everything from throwaway cameras to professional single lens reflex models for around €5,000, the arrival of Jessops will cause a serious shake-up in the photographic market here.

This is the company's first foray into the European market outside of the UK and it aims to have 450 stores up and running around Europe by the end of 2007.

Back in the 1970s, Jessops was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest photographic store.

The Leicester-based company is in the forefront of the digital camera boom in the UK, with 265 stores dedicated to photographic equipment.

Originally a family firm founded in 1935, Jessops was acquired in a secondary buyout in October 2002 by ABN AMRO Capital, the private equity arm of one of Europe's largest banks.

Andy Kerr, general manager of the Grafton Street store, previously ran the Jessops shop on Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street - one of the top seven in the UK in terms of performance.

The company's broad base, from digital developing to professional equipment, is its greatest strength, he says.

"We will be co-operative with other camera shops in the city - we're not here to put anyone out of business. But we're looking forward to the challenge of raising our profile here."

The latest Jessops store is located at the bottom of Grafton Street, in premises formerly leased by Marlborough Recruitment before its closure in February 2002.

With storage in the basement and office accommodation on four overhead levels, the revamped building attracted a keen level of interest from Irish and overseas traders when it came on the market through joint agents CB Richard Ellis Gunne and Hamilton Osborne King.

Jessops is paying a rent of €265,000 per annum for 371 sq m (3,993 sq ft) of floor space, equating to a Zone A rate of €4,553 per sq m (€422 per sq ft), confirming the added value of a Grafton Street location.

Next door is Spectra, a photographic development company whose strategic presence could encourage footfall into the Jessops outlet. The contemporary, all-glass front of the new shop, making its abundant stock visible on the shelves inside, is likely to inveigle passers-by through the doors for a browse.

Fifteen sales staff, most from Dublin and trained on the premises by Jessops, are on hand to advise.

The range of products on display is large and varied, with a good selection of accessories, such as tripods, picture frames and digital processing machines.

While a proportion of the staff are keen amateur photographers, the firm rates sales ability and customer service above product knowledge which can be learned, says Kerr, who is currently recruiting more assistants.

Going by the company's track record as one of the UK's major players, its arrival on Dublin's most important shopping street should increase the pace of the digital boom in Ireland. Jessops already has a strong following among photography enthusiasts through its website, www.jessops.com.

The company identified a need for an Irish presence from the high level of mail order business from here. A subsequent survey revealed that, while there were plenty of smaller camera outlets, there was a gap in the market here for a new Jessops store.

"We came to Grafton Street because we wanted to start off with a high profile. We have a huge market for what we do. Eventually, we might run photographic courses, but we need to get up and running and see how it develops," says Kerr.