Richmond Camera is about to close its last retail store

Richmond CameraPhoto byJack Jacobs /BizSense Screenshot

Richmond Camera is about to close its last retail store. The long-running local company plans to close its Carytown shop at 3128 W. Cary Street in late August 2024, according to President Ted Bullard.

The Carytown store has operated for years and is the company’s last retail outpost. It remained open after the company closed six stores in the Richmond area and in Fredericksburg and Charlottesville during the pandemic, according to a Richmond Times-Dispatch report.

WTVR 5 News reported that while the camera store at Cary Court Shopping Center is preparing to close, the 90-year-old company is not going out of business.

Richmond Camera's future

Richmond Camera plans to focus on its wholesale professional photography operations, which will continue to operate at its 50,000-square-foot facility at 7545 Midlothian Turnpike in Chesterfield, Virginia.

The Richmond Professional Lab will print school and sports team photographs, among other products and services aimed at professional photographers.

PhotographyPhoto byAlexander WangonUnsplash

Bullard said the decision was made to close the Carytown shop to focus on what has become the company’s core operations.

“That (retail) was a small piece of Richmond Camera’s business, and it was a distraction from our main business. It’s more of an emotional, sentimental thing to stay in the retail business, because we had been in that so long I didn’t really want to get out of it.”

Bullard said Richmond Camera doesn’t plan to provide retail services at the Chesterfield lab. Richmond Professional Lab will process photo orders for over 10 million K-12 students, competitive dancers, youth athletes, and high school seniors annually. The facility will continue to serve more than 3,000 professional photography studios as it has done for more than 85 years.