It’s fair to say that many local businesses have been having to find inventive new ways to create revenue this year but the local UPS Store in Campbell River Common has found a way to do it while also helping support a valuable community resource.
Most people think of “shipping” when they think of UPS but when the current owners of the local UPS Store, Sebastian Saez and his wife, took over a few years ago, he wanted them to also think “printing.”
“The previous owner wasn’t doing that much printing,” Saez says. “But when we bought it, we converted it into a full-on print shop, and I’m not sure too many people know that.”
But he didn’t want to just spread the word about the services they offer. He also wanted to find a way to give back to the community while doing so.
“I was on the museum’s website and I saw all the beautiful archive photos that they have in their collection,” he says. “So I approached them to see if we could offer some as prints – while also giving them a good chunk of the proceeds – to let people see the type of quality work we can do.”
The museum, as it turns out, was enthusiastic to be a part of it. They sent along a selection of photos that they thought people would be interested in having hanging in their homes or businesses, and Saez took it from there.
“We narrowed it down to 16 photos from what they sent,” he says. “They know their audience and what people are going to like but we wanted to make it easy for them to control what pictures are being used by limiting the number and also ensure that we were only using ones that were a high enough definition that they’ll still look good if people want to blow them up really big.”
Initially, they were just planning on running it as a Christmas promotion but that’s not how it ended up playing out.
“We intended on doing it as a holiday thing,” Saez says, “but when we talked to them about the possibility of doing this, they extended to us the offer of doing it for two years, which is really exciting.”
Anyone interested in checking out the offerings can contact the store at 250-286-3500 (ext. 5) or by email at store215@theupsstore.ca and Saez will be happy to help.
“When people contact us to say they’re interested, we can give them either a digital or physical book that has all of the options,” he says. “And there are also multiple different sizing options, so people don’t have to spend a ton of money to have a beautiful historical Campbell River photo on a gallery-wrapped canvas in their home.”
The store is also open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. if you want to just stop in.
RELATED: Documenting Campbell River…in photos
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