General Imaging to sell cameras at Walgreens

LAS VEGAS General Imaging used the first day of the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show to announce it will begin selling its cameras at Walgreens in April.

“They’ve been selling our cameras on their Web site but now we’ll be going into 6,000 stores,” said Rene Buhay, senior vp of marketing and sales, Americas. “And this will be our first venture into the food and drug category.”

The cameras will arrive in stores April 15 and Walgreens will sell two models starting at $89. Buhay said entering Walgreen’s would expand its GE branded line of cameras to more than 22,000 storefronts. The company also unveiled nine new cameras at PMA.

The buzz on opening day at PMA centered on the new wave of new cameras loaded with features like face and smile recognition at lower prices, a product of a mature market that’s unlikely to match the 34 million cameras sold in the U.S. last year. The show is expected to draw about 20,000 attendees.