CPI Takes Another Hit, Closing 124 More Portrait Studios At Babies R Us Stores

Last month, I posted a story about CPI corporation closing hundreds of Picture Me portrait studios in Walmarts across the nation. Well, I guess those closing didn't do much to help CPI's bottom line, because now 124 of the company's Kiddie Kandids portrait studios at Babies R Us stores are also shutting down. Here is stltoday.com with the story:

St. Louis-based CPI Corp. is closing 124 underperforming Kiddie Kandids portrait studios inside Babies R Us stores in the next couple of weeks.

The closings, which were revealed in a regulatory filing Monday, follows a similar announcement last month that it would close 346 of its PictureMe portrait studios inside Walmart stores across the country.

After these closures, CPI will continue to operate 2,584 portrait studios inside of Walmart, Sears, and Babies R Us stores in the U.S., the company said.

CPI said that 102 of the Kiddie Kandid studio locations to be closed were the result of them not meeting minimum sales requirements as set out in a host agreement with Toys R Us. The others 22 locations were closing following the company's evaluation of its portfolio.

The company expects exit costs related to these closures to be about $700,000.

The portrait studio operator has suffered a number of blows in recent months following poor financial results, including the transfer of its stock from the New York Stock Exchange to the over-the-counter market.

Of course, the story didn't say what the real problem is: that CPI produces a product that is a completely unnecessary luxury and is trying to sell it to cash strapped working and middle class families. The ultimate death of this company appears to be just a matter of time.


Bonus: Photograph

CPI Corp. Shuttering Hundreds Of Portrait Studios

Everyone who hasn't imbibed the hopium knows that the economy is not a (ahem) pretty picture right now. This of course (ahem) poses a lot of problems for companies which produce nonessential products, especially if the target market is lower middle income earners. Here is Stltoday.com with the latest (ahem) portrait of such distress:

CPI Corp. plans to close 346 of its PictureMe portrait studios located in Wal-Marts across the country next month.

The St. Louis-based operator of portrait studios announced the planned closures in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. In the filing, CPI said employees at the affected studios were notified today. The stores, which it described as "underperforming," will close by March 23. Company officials did not answer calls requesting comment about the closures.

After the stores close next month, CPI will continue to operate 2,712 portrait studios located at Wal-Mart, Sears and Babies "R" Us stores nationwide. CPI said in the filing that it expects exit costs to total between $2.8 million and $3.1 million related to the store closures.

We'll keep our eyes on this (ahem) developing story as I'm sure this will not be the last time this company is forced to close locations.

Okay, I'll stop with the puns now.


Bonus: "I've been living so long with my pictures of you...that I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel"

Lifetouch Photography Closing Two Chattanooga Operations; 383 to be Laid Off

image: Lifetouch management just "expressed itself" to some of its workers - GTFO

This time it was a merger rather than outsourcing which caused a mass layoff action. Here is the Columbus Republic with the details:

The Lifetouch photography company is cutting 383 jobs in Chattanooga as it closes two facilities acquired in its recent purchase of longtime competitor Olan Mills.

A spokesman for Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Lifetouch said Monday that the two locations to be closed over the next several months, a photography lab and pre-press facility and a separate printing facility, were acquired when Lifetouch bought Olan Mills in November.

The article didn't give many other details, but I found this little tidbit from Wikipedia about the company to be interesting:

In 1978, 100 percent of the company's ownership was transferred to its employees, and it now promotes itself as the largest employee-owned company in the photography industry.

So I guess the "owners" of the company didn't want any more competition. Actually, it's amazing that in this modern age of digital photography that such a company is even still viable.


Bonus: Portrait photography, like Def Leppard, seems SO 1980s