Henry’s to begin selling camera-centric Bell smartphones, offer free Phoneography courses

Henry’s, one of the few Canadian remaining retailers dedicated entirely to photography, has partnered with Bell to sell camera-centric smartphones. The collaboration is meant to raise the prominence of smartphone photography among camera enthusiasts, and encourage smartphone users to seek out Henry’s experts for advice.

The company will sell six devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S5, S5, Note 3, HTC One M8, and the upcoming Sony Xperia Z2, and because photography is emphasized, they have a handy chart detailing which devices offer the best performance.

Henry’s is taking advantage of the fact that smartphone photography has come a long, long way in the past few years. With devices like the Galaxy S5 sporting 16MP sensors, and the HTC One M8 taking advantage of two rear cameras, the retailer sees this push as the right move at the right time.

Not only will Henry’s be stocking a number of phone-related camera accessories, including tripods, lighting gear, macro and wide-angle lens attachment, they will begin offering so-called Phoneography courses to customers.

Most of the courses, such as “Composition for Camera Phones” and “Phoneography 101,” cost $50 to customers, but everyone who purchases and activates a Bell phone at Henry’s will receive a free course; current Bell customers who don’t purchase a phone will receive a $20 discount for each course. And, to top it off, anyone who brings a working camera for trade-in will receive a minimum of $25 credit towards a new Bell phone activation.

This move is an interesting one, as the other major national camera retailer, Black’s, was purchased by TELUS in 2009, but has yet to truly push the brand past merely selling TELUS’ products in another retail channel.

Bell purchased tech retailer, The Source, formerly Radio Shack Canada, shortly before the Black’s purchase, and has since created an auxiliary sales channel to its corporate and dealer stores.

Henry’s Phoneography push will begin in two stores, Toronto and Pickering, before expanding to all 32 stores across Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

[source]Newswire[/source]