Frame your fav celluloid moment on your wall
Frameworthy
Want to freeze your favourite celluloid moments on your wall? Grab your mouse and go click-click. The poster you longed for might soon be out of stock
There was a time when the search for authentic film posters took us to dingy bylanes in the city or made us depend on that distant NRI cousin to return with the shipment. Not any more. A host of websites are on the job, selling original and licensed prints of film stills and posters. Collecting posters is thus no longer considered a niche hobby as you too can line up that empty wall along your staircase with your favourite movie moments.
Says Ankit Magori, VP Business Development of Flipkart, a website that started by vending books and gradually moved on to gadgets and now, posters, "Posters have always been popular collectibles since it gives people the opportunity to connect with their favourite movies, icons, and artists. Our research has shown that this had potential to be a scaleable and sustainable category." The demand for posters is such that they become out of stock the very next day. And it's not just film posters that are flying off the racks. "Pink Floyd to Monet art prints, it's the same story. In the coming months, we plan to launch canvasses, framed and stretched posters as well as 3D ones," says Ankit.
The burgeoning sales have made absolute rookies, fresh out of colleges, sit up and take notice. Take 22-year-old Bharat Sethi, who cofounded PosterGully, for instance. He saw that there was an untapped market, waiting to be explored. "I ganged up with my friends — Anuvi Srivastava, Utsav Marwaha and Mahesh Jhakotia and PosterGully was launched in May," he says. The site has almost 60,000 unique visitors, an unusually high growth for online businesses. Rahul Rao of OyeBazaar feels posters were always a fun thing to purchase. "They've have never been so easily accessible. That, combined with the massive choice online stores offer are key to the growth in this little segment," he says.
Buyers are spoilt rotten when it comes to choice — huge maxi prints, doorway posters, 3D and even vintage re-prints of New York Times pages. The websites are user-friendly with options of online payment or cash-on-delivery, free home delivery and money back guarantee. The USP of the sites is that they sell licensed products. "We acquire these products and images from production houses and suppliers in the west," says Bharat. "We also have a lot of domestic artwork posters, photography and prints, the rights of which we acquire from individual artists," he adds. "We've tied up with companies that have the official rights to print these licensed images," says Rahul. His company sources all its posters from these companies located in the US and UK. While PosterGully boasts of a collection of 5000 posters, OyeBazaar claims of an even bigger database. Bharat adds a word of caution, though. "Some sites are selling unlicensed products. Make sure where you are purchasing your posters from," he says.
While none are willing to share exact figures, all agree, the coming months will see a surge in the trend. So be it Batman saving Gotham, Monroe in her billowing skirt or Breakfast At Tiffany's, it's time to get them framed. After all, they're only a click away!
There was a time when the search for authentic film posters took us to dingy bylanes in the city or made us depend on that distant NRI cousin to return with the shipment. Not any more. A host of websites are on the job, selling original and licensed prints of film stills and posters. Collecting posters is thus no longer considered a niche hobby as you too can line up that empty wall along your staircase with your favourite movie moments.
Says Ankit Magori, VP Business Development of Flipkart, a website that started by vending books and gradually moved on to gadgets and now, posters, "Posters have always been popular collectibles since it gives people the opportunity to connect with their favourite movies, icons, and artists. Our research has shown that this had potential to be a scaleable and sustainable category." The demand for posters is such that they become out of stock the very next day. And it's not just film posters that are flying off the racks. "Pink Floyd to Monet art prints, it's the same story. In the coming months, we plan to launch canvasses, framed and stretched posters as well as 3D ones," says Ankit.
The burgeoning sales have made absolute rookies, fresh out of colleges, sit up and take notice. Take 22-year-old Bharat Sethi, who cofounded PosterGully, for instance. He saw that there was an untapped market, waiting to be explored. "I ganged up with my friends — Anuvi Srivastava, Utsav Marwaha and Mahesh Jhakotia and PosterGully was launched in May," he says. The site has almost 60,000 unique visitors, an unusually high growth for online businesses. Rahul Rao of OyeBazaar feels posters were always a fun thing to purchase. "They've have never been so easily accessible. That, combined with the massive choice online stores offer are key to the growth in this little segment," he says.
Buyers are spoilt rotten when it comes to choice — huge maxi prints, doorway posters, 3D and even vintage re-prints of New York Times pages. The websites are user-friendly with options of online payment or cash-on-delivery, free home delivery and money back guarantee. The USP of the sites is that they sell licensed products. "We acquire these products and images from production houses and suppliers in the west," says Bharat. "We also have a lot of domestic artwork posters, photography and prints, the rights of which we acquire from individual artists," he adds. "We've tied up with companies that have the official rights to print these licensed images," says Rahul. His company sources all its posters from these companies located in the US and UK. While PosterGully boasts of a collection of 5000 posters, OyeBazaar claims of an even bigger database. Bharat adds a word of caution, though. "Some sites are selling unlicensed products. Make sure where you are purchasing your posters from," he says.
While none are willing to share exact figures, all agree, the coming months will see a surge in the trend. So be it Batman saving Gotham, Monroe in her billowing skirt or Breakfast At Tiffany's, it's time to get them framed. After all, they're only a click away!
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