Photo retailer expands into weekly Camera Competitions

The photographic retailer D H James has evolved its business with an offshoot that offers weekly Camera Competitions online and via its Facebook page Camera Talk UK.

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The competitions were run by a previous company and D H James – who are based in Wells, Somerset – took it over in September 2021.

Company director Chris Goodwin explained, ‘D H James is a family photographic retail business that has been running for over 50 years. There are many types of competitions sites online, but many are not honest. We gain trust with our customers as we are the biggest dedicated camera competitions page and we gain a lot of trust from having the link with D H James and knowing all the stock is supplied from there, ie they’re not grey imports and are fully guaranteed. We also do the live draws in front of the camera so they can see us and know that we are real people from both companies.’

Goodwin added, ‘As a camera retailer we constantly need to adapt to the changing world and are looking at ideas to stay current. We were approached by some people we know very well who run another competition site. They had set up a site for cameras, however were too busy with their site to continue running it. They asked us if we wanted to take over the site.’

Chris Goodwin (left) and Sherralyn Neil (right) of DH James and Camera Competitions

Live draws

Camera Competitions runs draws every Wednesday live on Facebook.

The prizes vary from high-end cameras, such as the Canon EOS R5 or Nikon Z6 II, down to photography gear such as tripods.

Tickets prices to enter the draws vary from 99p up to around £7.99 and you can buy multiple tickets in each draw if you wish.

According to Chris Goodwin the response to Camera Competitions has been, ‘Very positive. We are building a community on Facebook where people can share their ideas and work. Check out our Facebook page Camera Talk UK. Our audience has been steadily increasing, which has meant we can offer bigger and better prizes.’

The odds of winning are said to be ‘great’, as all of competitions have a limited set number of tickets and are drawn on the set date, even if not all the tickets aren’t sold.

Depending on the prize, sometimes cash alternatives are offered.

Chris Goodwin revealed, ‘We want to continue to grow our audience so that we can offer more prizes and give people who love photography a fun place where they can discuss ideas, geek out about equipment and have a little dabble to win prizes they love.’