In addition to being a place to buy discounted laptops and find DVDs of obscure anime you didn’t know people still watched, Best Buy will now be a place for budding photographers to take lessons, as spotted by PetaPixel. Best Buy will be offering lessons in its new Camera Experience Shop, which is sponsored by camera brands Canon, Nikon, Sony, and GoPro.
Small camera experience shops have opened inside over 80 Best Buy stores across the US so far. Customers can either browse cameras in the store or take lessons from professional photographers. They can learn techniques like shooting in low light, taking close-ups, and working in portrait mode. The beginner classes listed near the New York area include Halloween photography, back-to-school photography, and tips for taking holiday card photos.
A $50 fee covers a bus, lunch, and a snack
While beginner workshops like those are free, intermediate workshops cost $50. The fee covers the bus you’ll take from the Best Buy to a nearby area set up specifically for taking photos, a lunch, and a snack. Intermediate classes are currently only offered in Atlanta, Houston, New York, San Diego, Tampa, Seattle, and Minneapolis.
For Best Buy, something as simple as photography lessons are an easy way to get more consumers to come into its physical stores. As more electronics purchases move online — where Best Buy has to compete with Amazon and other third-party sellers — Best Buy is trying to add more value to its brick-and-mortar locations by offering education around tech purchases. Teaching classes and offering free training on practical skills is an idea that Apple already employs in its retail stores, and it seems like Best Buy is taking a page out of the tech giant’s book here.