InfoTrends, Weymouth, Mass., released its U.S. Consumer Photo Merchandise Market Forecast: 2010-2015. InfoTrends projects the photo merchandise market will grow substantially over the forecast period, reaching $2.2 billion in revenues by 2015.

 Photo books will contribute the most to overall revenue and will experience the largest growth numbers. Increasing penetration into the mass market through marketing and promotional efforts will be key to driving photo merchandise growth over the next few years.

Associate Director David Haueter commented, "Attracting more first-time buyers into the photo merchandise market will be essential to success. InfoTrends consumer research data shows that, in 2010, only 32 percent of survey respondents had purchased any type of photo merchandise in the past year. This was an increase over 2009 numbers (25 percent), but there is still nearly 70 percent of the population that have not purchased photo merchandise in the last year."

For vendors to be successful, they must have attractive and competitive photo merchandise product offerings. They also must have marketing efforts in place that clearly show the benefits of these products to their customers and must be in a state of constantly looking ahead to determine what products their customers will want or what types of new design or product features will appeal to them. Vendors must also be considering how to improve the workflow process that is involved with the creation and ordering of photo merchandise items to make it simpler for their customers, InfoTrends said.

Haueter continued, "There are challenges involved in being successful in this market, but InfoTrends has a very positive outlook on the long-term health and growth of this market, as it gives consumers a creative outlet for doing things with their photos. This makes photo merchandise very appealing to photographers of all ages and skill levels."