CEDAR FALLS - Mike Walden had several reasons to move his family's business, Walden Photo, from its downtown locations in Waterloo and Cedar Falls, but the main reason lies with Jennifer.

"Jennifer" is the name of the market Walden Photo is targeting: so-called soccer moms, 25-45, with less disposable income but who are more hands-on with their family, more oriented around their children.

"They want to really put a nice personal touch to everything," Walden said. "And these people really weren't going to downtown Waterloo, as much as I hate to say that.

"We thought that was the best way of getting to that Jennifer market."

Walden Photo moved into its new location, 3809 Cedar Heights Drive, over the Labor Day weekend. The business had sold its buildings in downtown Waterloo and Cedar Falls in October 2006, then used the money from those sales to buy its new building, also last fall. Walden Photo remodeled the building, formerly a State Farm claims office.

"We were a destination location beforehand. That was certainly the case," Walden said. He co-owns the store with his brother, Dick Walden, and cousin David Walden, who runs the Ames store. "We had some walk-up traffic when we were in both locations, but it was getting less and less."

"We wanted to be centrally located in the Cedar Valley," Walden said. "Before, we had the two locations, we were spending so much time running back and forth, we were losing a lot of manhours." Scattered over five buildings as it was, "to put it all under one roof just made sense economically."

The new location gives Walden Photo more retail space, with about 5,000 square feet, but less storage space. But that drawback is a positive in the sense that "it forces us to get rid of stuff we've been sitting on for years," Walden said.

Walden Photos also has a bigger photo studio and will add an outdoor area to the studio.

"And we gained a ton of parking. Downtown Waterloo, on a good day, we had four parking spots. Which is three more than we had in Cedar Falls," Walden said. "Here, we have 63."

The store will also offer more services than either of its two previous locations did - partly because those services are consolidated under one roof, Walden said. It is also improving some of the services it previously offered, such as creating photo books, by doing them in-house and not outsourcing them.

The advantage for the customer, he said, will be a quicker turnaround on orders and more creative control in their hands - more control over how a page is a laid out, or the photos cropped.

"Sure, we can do that, but they have complete control if they want that," Walden said.

Walden Photo has also added to the items it sells on the floor, such as carrying more lighting stands as they come down in price. Walden Photo has also revamped its Web site, adding a shopping cart function. People can also use it to create their own mugs or T-shirts with a picture, or to print their photos at home.

The decision to move wasn't easy, said Dick Walden.

"After we'd been in downtown Waterloo for over 70, darn near 80 years, that was a real tough decision," Dick said. "But I guess when we saw the new location, and so much more parking and the display room, it was just something we couldn't pass up."

The changing nature of the photo industry has necessitated Walden Photo making such moves to stay competitive.

The number of specialty photo dealers in the U.S. has been dropping like a rock, from 5,600 in 1991 to under 2,000 now, Walden said. More people are taking digital photos, and those people are shooting more digital photos but printing fewer of them. Thirteen percent of digital photos are printed, he said, but that number is growing.

"So we kind of need to reinvent ourselves. Gone are the days of being a mom-and-pop printing shop," Walden said.

"Whereas before, people were thinking it was just a hardware store of camera equipment," he said. "We do so much more. I like to tell people, we'll do anything and everything photographic, except weddings."

Walden is also looking into establishing drop-off locations in Cedar Falls and Waterloo - kiosks at existing businesses or locations where people can drop off rolls of film, upload digital pictures or have passport photos taken.

"One of the local hospitals has approached us about it," Walden said, adding it is too early to say which hospital. "That's being worked on as we speak. Who knows where it's going to go? It's too early to tell."

The move to Cedar Heights drive saw no drop-off in customers, he said. Some kind of drop-off is normal when a business moves location.

"You want to go to where your customers are," Walden said. "This is a growing area. They're building condos right up to the property line.

"We were just struggling to bring that Jennifer market to downtown Waterloo," he said.

Contact Jeff Wilford at (319) 291-1423 or jeff.wilford@wcfcourier.com.