Shanghai Xingguang Photographic Equipment Wholesale Market Management Co., Ltd.: Photography can influence life and will facilitate the inheritance and innovation of photographic culture

Company profile
 
Shanghai Xingguang Photographic Equipment Wholesale Market Management Co., Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shanghai Yimin Commercial Investment Development Co. Ltd., which is a part of Yinmin Group. Established in June, 1997, it grows out of Xinguang Photographic Equipment Store and is a famous century-old shop in Shanghai and the only state-owned professional photographic equipment market in Shanghai. Taking advantage of its state-owned time-honored brand and adhering to the business philosophy of “honesty and profession”, Xingguang has successfully developed a one-stop photographic equipment business model. It has developed from “going to Xingguang to buy photographic equipment to taking photographs” through implementing transitional development and innovating the connation of “promoting and developing commerce with culture”. At the same time, it continues to build its honest and professional service brand, which lays its leading position in East China photographic equipment retail industry.
 
Xingguang Photographic Equipment City (hereinafter shortened as “Xingguang City”) covers an area of 15,000 square meters and mainly deals with camera, studio strobe, studio supplies, second-hand camera, color printing, photo album and frame. It also provides featured services like camera repairing, skill instruction, makeup training and so on. With the support of the industry association and photographer association, Xingguang provides shutterbugs with all kinds of photographic services while promoting photographic culture.
 
Challenges
 
Photography roots deeply in culture. To make photographic culture be better suited with its place, one has to combine photographic culture with social elements, endow cultural and practical connotations to photography and make it part of the social belongingness. Therefore, photographic culture should be further publicized and popularized to make more people have access to photography and love photography.
 
One of the key issues that face the photographic industry is how to inherit and innovate photographic culture effectively. As a state-owned enterprise focusing on “promoting and developing commerce with culture”, Shanghai Xingguang Photographic Equipment Wholesale Market Management Co., Ltd. has the capacity and responsibility to make photography more accessible to shutterbugs and to inherit and innovate photographic culture in a better way.
 
Solutions
 
Xingguang City adheres to the concept that photography can influence life and devotes to integrating life, photography and culture. As a photographic equipment sales market, it makes use of its advantage in great size and numerous types to provide shutterbugs with featured services and various activities related to photographic culture.
 
Bringing photographic culture into schools. Xingguang City has launched the activity of bringing photographic culture on campus. It has established photography clubs for MBA students in Jiaotong University and Tongji University in succession and provided students a special module for communication and discussion in BBS. Xingguang City arranges professional photography teachers for MBA students, provides them with training courses on photographic skills and organizes members of the MBA club to do field shooting to integrate theory with practice. It also holds photographic work exchange and sharing meetings to develop the trainees’ interest in photography and photographic culture through communication and exchanges.
 
Bringing photographic culture into military camps. To better integrate photographic culture with the life in the military camp, Xingguang city has designed and organized a series of activity, including training on photography, photo exhibition and photography exchange meeting, for Songshan fire squadron. It has invited Tang Shilong, a senior military photographer, to hold a photographic work exchange activity and exhibit his military photographic works, which integrates photographic culture with military culture. Meanwhile, Xingguang City sends out the memorial album, The Youth Through Fire, to veterans who are going to be discharged from military service to record their life and sweet memories in the military camp with cameras.
 
Bringing photographic culture into communities. To make photographic culture root in the communities, Xingguang City works together with Dapuqiao sub-district and carries out a series of community public service activity. Based on the psychological needs of the old in the community, Xingguang City has launched many public welfare photography activities, like taking photographs for “gold wedding couples” and “the most family” to spread love and care with photographs.
 
At the same time, Xingguang City has organized various training lectures on photographic skills for the young in the communities to teach them photographic knowledge and skills, to acquaint them with photography and to introduce photography into their life. Besides, Xingguang City has established the “Xingguang photography youth center” in collaboration with Dapuqiao sub-district to provide young shutterbugs with a platform and space for exchange, to conduct various activities like skill training, experiencing new photographic equipment and field shooting, and to enrich the photography life in the communities.
 
Building a popular photography training center. Xingguang City has built a professional lecturer team, provided “Listening to Shanghai” series photography training courses and devoted to building a popular photography training center. It has invited 11 master photographers, spent 2 months and conducted over 15 training hours of courses, which involve nearly a thousand of people. It not only provides shutterbugs with instructions on photographic skills, but also improves their artistic taste for photography.
 
Building an interactive photography experience base. To get rid of the traditional way of imparting photographic culture, Xingguang City has built a photography experience base, which provides multifold innovative activities, including photo exhibition, photographic equipment experience, studio shooting and photo contest. The five-month “the second Shanghai International Tourism Photography Contest” held in the base encourages many shutterbugs to participate in the contest and improves the engagement of the mass. Also, the base holds co-branding photographic equipment experience activities from time to time to create an opportunity for more shutterbugs to experience the photographic effects of different equipment and open the door of photography from equipment experience to them with actual operation.
 
Achievement
 
Social benefit
 
Inheriting the photographic culture. Xingguang City has spread the concept of combining photography with culture to the mass shutterbugs, rooted photographic culture deeply into various ages and classes and pushed forward the inheritance and innovation of photographic culture through bringing photographic culture into the schools, military camps and communities. In 2016, it held 72 influential photography activities and public service activities. About 2900 people attended the activities.
 
Economic benefit
 
Building a good brand image. Xingguang City has been awarded many honorary titles, such as “Shanghai Famous Brand”, “Famous Trademark in Shanghai”, “Shanghai Four-star Integrity Building Unit”, “Shanghai Five-star Advanced Unit for Integrity Management from Year 2011 to 2015” and “Public Satisfaction Enterprise”. While winning a good reputation and expanding its brand influence, Xingguang City has improved its business performance and sales target. Its net profit keeps witnessing a two-digit growth. The fans of its WeChat official account have increased by 2982 and the members of Xingguang BBS have reached nearly 40,000.
 
Prospect
 
The inheritance and innovation of photography culture is an important window for Xingguang City’s commitment to social responsibility. The Xingguang City will continue to carry out multi-projects based on the concept of “photography can influence life”. It is committed to immersing photography culture in life and continuously improving the awareness and participation of photography lovers in photography culture. At the same time, Xingguang City will further explore how to better transmit and innovate in the photographic culture, make photography more popular and popular, and promote more economic benefits while enhancing corporate image, and further fulfill its corporate social responsibilities.