QUICKSILVER
Long-time Quicksilver employee Rose Anne Featherston created this tongue-in-cheek “historical” photo of Quicksilver staff. (L-R) Michael Latimer, Jennifer Fryer, owner Jeff Daffron and Alan Sanders. Featherston herself appears on computer monitor.
ties to keep everything going. I couldn’t just close up and change jobs.” Diversification is another business strategy that has contributed to Quicksilver’s success. According to the owner, the business is about
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a 50-50 mix of service and retail. On the retail side, the store offers a wide range of photo products ranging from point-and-shoot cameras and accessories to film and ink and paper. Even chemicals for home darkrooms.
On the service side they restore old photos, scan slides, negatives and prints, reproduce art work, and develop and print film. They also do some on-line business, service some wholesale accounts for developing film and restoration, and “…find a home for old cameras by reselling them or seeing that they get used for parts.” As Daffron sees it, the keys to Quicksilver success always have been, and always will be, knowledge and customer service. “No one can match the depth of our photographic skills,” he said. “We constantly have customers coming in telling us the people at the box stores just don’t know anything, and they’re so glad that Bellingham still has a real camera store.” This reputation for expertise has served the company well, and has helped Quicksilver expand its market reach during a time in which the vast majority of competitors have fallen by the wayside . “It’s not unusual to get orders from customers who have moved away from Bellingham and can’t find the service they need in their new location,” Daffron said. “So we get work from other states, and wholesale accounts in Alaska as well as Mount Vernon and Everett.” Daffron said Quicksilver still does plenty of the work that launched the enterprise all those decades ago. “The industry was built on rolls of 36 four-by-six prints,” he said. “Digital knocked the bottom out of that. But we still do a great deal of film work,” he said, smiling. “A customer in Fairhaven recently brought in 180 rolls of film for processing. Folks will find rolls in a drawer, or when they’re clearing out an estate. Many other stores have dropped their film processing, so we are getting more.” It’s one of the benefits of being a survivor. Resilience. It makes a world of difference.