Costco, Walgreens, and the Service Shutdown Problem: Why Retail Photo and Tape Services Keep Disappearing
Last updated: July 2026
Costco confirmed in early 2024 that it would end in-store photo and video transfer services at every U.S. location, following Walgreens and CVS that also stopped offering media transfer services. The economics are simple: analog media transfer work needs specialized equipment, trained staff, and careful handling. In retail heavily trafficked locations this is time and experience that associates are just not prepared for.
According to Retail Dive, chain stores have consistently reduced or eliminated photo departments over the past decade as digital photography reduced demand for prints while simultaneously making analog preservation services more complex. What remains in many retail locations is typically fulfilled by third-party digitization vendors who ship materials to centralized facilities, adding weeks to turnaround and creating potential points of loss that worry customers with irreplaceable family memories.
Major retail chains continue to shutter photo departments as economics and complexity make preservation services incompatible with high-volume retail models.
Why Chain Stores Keep Closing Photo Departments
The business model of photo labs fails in a few areas. First, photo labs are typically located in retail stores where they are dependent on footfall through the store and impulse buying. However, from the survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, when it comes to preservation of photos, consumers are generally very cautious and like to research before making a purchase. This type of customer is not likely to walk into a photo lab in a store. Second, the depreciation of the photo lab’s equipment. High-end photo scanners and other pieces of hardware for digitization need to be fine-tuned on a regular basis and therefore can become very expensive as they have to be replaced regularly. For a lab that only processes twenty orders a month as opposed to two hundred, the cost of keeping the best equipment up to date could be too high.
Frequent employee turnover leads to inconsistent quality control. Consumer Reports found that retail photo services produced inconsistent results even within the same chain, with quality varying based on which employee handled the work. Retailers struggle to justify training costs when employees rotate between departments weekly and photo services account for only a small portion of overall revenue.
"Forever Studios regularly works with customers who initially used retail photo services but switched after experiencing inconsistent scans, damaged materials, or extended waits from third-party fulfillment. Retail photo services prioritize convenience and volume. Preservation work optimizes for care and permanence. Those aren't compatible priorities."
Zachary G., Media Preservation Specialist, Forever Studios, Forever Studios
What Happens to Your Materials When Services Shut Down
The most immediate risk is materials in transit or being processed when closure announcements happen. Costco gave customers 90 days notice, but other chains have closed photo departments with shorter timelines. Items shipped to third-party media digitizing facilities can take weeks to return. Several customers have brought us replacement copies of family photos after originals were lost during a local or national retailer's photo service closing.
Forever Studios · Boca Raton, FL
VHS Tape Transfer
We clean, repair, and digitize VHS and camcorder tapes — including flood-recovery cases.
GET STARTED →The larger issue is education. Retail photo departments that handled photo scanning services and VHS to digital transfer also provided informal education: which format to choose, how to organize materials, what resolution actually means. When those touchpoints disappear, customers make decisions based on price comparison alone, often choosing the cheapest online option and discovering quality problems only after receiving files.
Where to Preserve Memories After Retail Shutdowns
There is a huge difference between setting up a studio that offers preservation services professionally, in accordance with the Library of Congress preservation standards, and setting up a retail outlet. First, the work is carried out in a controlled environment according to documented methods and each stage is clearly assigned to an individual who carries it out as part of their job. The business model of studios for preservation services is based on a greater output per studio than is the case with retail-type operations. The studios are run by a number of full-time preservation specialists.
Local providers offer another advantage retail chains cannot: physical proximity to your materials. Forever Studios, a professional photo and video preservation studio in South Florida, keeps all work in-house rather than shipping to distant fulfillment centers. Customers can discuss specific concerns about fragile materials, review samples before committing to full projects, and retrieve originals immediately if plans change. That direct relationship matters when you're trusting someone with photographs and tapes that cannot be replaced.
Dedicated preservation facilities maintain specialized equipment and trained staff that retail economics cannot support.
As more retail photo transfer services cease to operate, the battle between economics and complexity will eventually lose for chain retailers trying to run a high volume / low touch retail business. For those materials that matter, choosing a service provider whose entire business is focused on preservation is key. Don’t confuse retail locations that have 8mm film transfer equipment for the occasional special event with a dedicated preservation service where every employee is trained to know the difference between a decent scanned photo and a truly archived photo. A real preservation service has a structure in place to ensure your family memories are treated as irreplaceable not just as another SKU. The convenience of retail photo transfer services will disappear quickly. The important question that should have been asked all along is who in the market specializes in this work?
