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Ready and Hire - part 3 of 1 2 3

Published 01/12/2013

Based in the East Sussex countryside, a fairly recent development is that the company has swapped over to using UPS for its courier service. One of the significant changes has been the ability to provide 'access points' such as late night convenience stores. "The advantage of this is that rather than the photographer having to wait in for the equipment to be collected, they can drop it at an access point. They're using stores such as Budgens or Post Offices - ones that are open reasonably long hours. We include all the labels and the bags when we send everything out, so all our photographer customers need to do is pack everything up, put the label on and walk into an access point. They haven't got to wait around for courier any longer, which is a dramatic change."

In terms of the deposits required on an item, Thatcher says that this works out at approximately 10% of the value of an item if the customer also takes out optional insurance with Hireacamera.com. "The insurance is there as an option but we've fought very hard to keep the premiums down on that - and I'm hoping that next year they'll go down even further."

As if that wasn't enough to get you to consider hiring, Hireacamera.com further offers a loyalty scheme which it has described in the past as being 'like British Airways' in that there are Gold, Silver and Bronze levels. "The one difference is that we don't actually reset it every year and we haven't done for three years. That means if someone's now getting their full discount, regardless of how many times they've hired this year, they will continue to do so next year as well."

Previously when we spoke, Thatcher's firm had started hiring out Bowens lighting kits. To this line-up it has recently added the Elinchrom Quadra as well. "We've seen a demand for a portable lighting solution over and above the Speedlights, and the Quadra's amount the best in the business.

The new Sigma lenses have also been very popular this year; they've come on in leaps and bounds and the demand for them has significantly increased. The new 120-300mm is proving very popular with people hiring out for wildlife shooting, and the 18-35mm is a massive hit for the video side of things, whilst the 35mm f/1.4 is just out all the time. They're incredibly popular because they're such good value and the quality of them is astronomically good now. We're just waiting for the 24-105mm to arrive which should be in the next week or two."

Looking forward to 2014, Hireacamera.com promises that it will be adding further benefits to hirers in terms of offering extras from other companies - exclusively to its loyalty members. It has been speaking with suppliers such as printing and framing companies, plus insurers and The Societies themselves to offer that added extra incentive. "It's by way of a thank you to our customers; I know a lot of people in the industry and can hopefully use those contacts to get a better deal for some people on various bits and pieces." Sounds like a good deal for photographers all round...

www.hireacamera.com

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1st Published 01/12/2013
last update 09/12/2022 14:58:28

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