Jessops: history of the chain which transformed photography

 
9 January 2013

Jessops traces it roots back to a chemist store opened in Leicester 130 years ago.

It was in 1935 that Frank Jessop transformed it into a photography shop, in the early days mainly involved in hiring and selling 16mm cine films.

The company quickly grew under the leadership of Jessop's son, Alan Jessop, who transformed it into a cut-price retailer of photographic equipment.

By the 1970s, it had outgrown its premises and moved to a new 20,000 sq ft site on Hinckley Road in Leicester, which was named as the largest photography store in the world by Guinness World Records. The shop later closed in 2008.

A second store followed at the start of the 1980s on London's Finchley Road and as personal cameras became more popular and affordable for the masses, the firm quickly expanded to more than 50 shops.

The company initially reaped the rewards of the boom in digital cameras, investing heavily in digital technology as the medium took over from traditional film, and by 2001 the number of Jessops branches on the high street had swelled to more than 200.

A year later, Jessops announced it was to open a further 40 stores, creating 400 new jobs and taking the total to more than 250.

As Britain's only specialist nationwide camera retailer it sold brands including Canon, Fuji, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus and Sony.

As well as offering a wide range of digital cameras and accessories, the company provided a service for customers to develop digital pictures in its stores, and introduced Jessops branded paper for home printing.

And along with camera equipment, the business also stocked digital and analogue camcorders, binoculars and darkroom and studio equipment.

The firm had ceased being a family-run business in 1996 after Alan Jessop retired and was sold in a management buyout.

Then in 2002, Dutch bank ABN Amro's venture capital arm bought Jessops for £116 million.

But by the middle of the decade, the company began to struggle to compete when other high street and internet competitors entered the market.

In 2004, it was floated on the London Stock Exchange.

A major overhaul followed in 2007 along with a swathe of store closures.

In 2009, Jessops came close to collapse but was rescued by its main lender HSBC in a controversial debt-for-equity swap that saw it taken off the stock market.

Since then, Jessops has been revamping stores and boosting its online business as part of efforts to get back on track.

It rolled out a completely new format with a new black store frontage and so-called play tables that allowed customers to look at cameras, in a move away from traditional cabinet displays.

But today's announcement shows this has not been enough to keep it in business.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in