Costco Photo Center is Closing. Now What?
By Glen Meakem • January 11, 2023
Last week, I learned that Costco is shutting down its photo business and trying to move its customers to Shutterfly. At first, it made me angry - how could Costco do this to its customers? And though I still feel for those who’ll be affected by this decision, my anger has mostly faded to hope: I hope these clients see that there is a solution out there for them. Their solution is FOREVER.
Here are a few reasons why:
- Costco Photo Center customers must move their photos to Shutterfly (or somewhere else) before January 31, 2024, because Costco is going to delete all of their memories on February 1, 2024. Yes, giant, mighty Costco is leaving the photo business behind. Every person and family who cares about their precious memories needs a complete, permanent place to save and enjoy all their photos and memories without having to worry. Everyone who cares about their memories needs FOREVER!
- If people cannot trust Costco, how in the world can they trust Shutterfly – where memories are saved only temporarily. In fact, Shutterfly recently re-affirmed their temporary photo storage policy. If you use Shutterfly, you need to print with them every 18 months, or they will delete all the photos that you are “storing” on their site. And once you upload photos to Shutterfly, they make it very difficult to download those photos. Shutterfly is a temporary, unreliable place to keep precious photos.
- FOREVER has superior quality and far superior service compared with Shutterfly. And, while Shutterfly discounts may look higher, it’s often smoke & mirrors. Our prices are competitive with Shutterfly every day.
- FOREVER has wonderful Ambassadors who help and support clients every day - neither Shutterfly nor Costco can match this level of service and care.
- Finally, as one of our Ambassadors said, “Costco and Shutterfly want to sell you photo products. They are not in the memory preservation business.” This makes their entire value proposition far less rich than FOREVER’s.
In summary, it is GREAT news for FOREVER that Costco is getting out of the photo business, and this is just more proof of how important FOREVER is to all people. Besides FOREVER, who can people trust? Certainly not Costco or Shutterfly.