How Dakis connects POS, online orders, and lab workflows, with Pat Hugron

Your customer starts a photo order on their phone, asks a question in store, pays at the counter, and expects everything to “just work.” Most retailers cannot deliver that simple experience because their POS, e-commerce site, kiosk, and lab workflow are stitched together from different systems, each with its own SKUs, pricing, and payment records. Gary Pageau of The Dead Pixels Society sits down with Pat Hugron, Vice President of Operations and R&D at Dakis, to unpack how unified commerce for photo retailers is meant to fix the daily grind of reconciliation, duplicate inventory, and channel confusion.

We trace Dakis’s long path from early product recommendation tech to building tools for camera stores, photo labs, and specialty retailers who need a single platform. Hugron shares what has changed in production over the years, why outsourcing the long tail of photo gifts can be healthier than trying to make everything in-house, and why “seamless” matters as much to the lab as it does to the customer. We also dig into the return of film, why the resurgence surprised so many stores, and how better film processing workflow and delivery can keep customers engaged long enough to actually order prints.

Then we get practical about what “unified” means: one product catalog across online and in-store, a save-and-send quote that lets staff build a cart and email a payment link, and unified data that can support smarter follow-up and add-on sales. Hugron also previews what is still coming, including purchase orders, receiving, and serial number tracking, plus how retailers can get hands-on training at the IPIC boot camp.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Erin Manning 0:09

Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau

Gary Pageau 0:20

hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau, and today we're joined by Pat Hugron, who is the Vice President of Operations and R&D at Dakis. Hi, Pat. How are you today?

Pat Hugron 0:35

Hi, Gary. I'm doing great. Thanks for, thanks for having me on the podcast.

19-Year Dakis Journey

Gary Pageau 0:40

So we're here to talk about your new commerce platform, but before we talk about that, tell us a little bit about your journey with the company, 'cause it's been a couple of decades. You've been in this for a while.

Pat Hugron 0:53

I- it's, I say 20 years, but really it's only 19 and I'm rounding up. But yeah, so 19 years at Dakis. Most of those in the photo and camera industry. It's been quite a trip and, they've been, really impactful years in the industry because there's been so much change since we started. You

Gary Pageau 1:10

So what got you into the industry? Where did you... were you a a programmer looking for opportunities, or what was that decision process like?

Pat Hugron 1:18

So early day Dakis, Dakis stood for Dakis Decision Systems. So we had made a platform. We'd made actually one of the first LLMs- 'cause that's, that we hear a lot about. We had made one of the, earliest LLMs out on the market, and the goal was to do product recommendations. So an example would be, in our industry, would be, a plain language questions to help you select a camera. So it would ask you, "Hey, do you like to shoot sports? Do you like, to take pictures of parties? Are you more of a portrait, nature lover?" Just all sorts of common sense questions about the product. So that's

Gary Pageau 1:50

where the

Pat Hugron 1:50

decision

Gary Pageau 1:51

came in.

Pat Hugron 1:52

Correct, correct. And then it would relate to the database, and it would spit out an actual sentence as an answer. The... Don't even remember the cameras that were out there. Probably a Minolta Maxim, model is great for low light shooting, and it has a great telephoto lens, so this would be the match for your, for your needs. And we did that in, work boots. We did that in camera. We did that in, wine and cheese pairings, oddly enough. And also it- All

Gary Pageau 2:18

those things are related so closely, right? It's a natural progression

Pat Hugron 2:22

and it worked for all of them. And then what happened is, we were a bunch of young kids and selling that, it might have been a little precocious for the marketplace. This was, the selling point was that it could work with, personal d- digital assistants, PDAs.

Gary Pageau 2:35

Oh, Palm Pilots and Newtons and all that?

Pat Hugron 2:36

Palm Pilots, and Newtons and all that stuff, right? So we're going back. And it was a little precocious on the marketplace. It was a hard sell, hard to monetize. So then we had to decide what are we doing. We have all this product information. What are we doing with it? And we bolted on an e-commerce platform. We made our own e-commerce platform around it, and that's before e-commerce was, something accessible. And then we were in the sports industry and we were looking at what other industry we can go into, and we tried different verticals, at that time. So it took off in sports a little bit And then we went to something you know a little bit about. We went to a PMA show,

Gary Pageau 3:13

Oh, I've heard of that

Pat Hugron 3:14

in, yeah, you've heard of that, right? In the early, mid-2000s, the mid-aughts. And we were in the back room, back when there was many rooms at the PMA.

Gary Pageau 3:23

Yeah

Pat Hugron 3:23

before everything in the industry was made in China. So we were with the knick-knack vendors in the back. Yeah. I think it was Brian Noble that found us first.

Gary Pageau 3:32

Yeah.

Pat Hugron 3:33

And Michael St. Germain. And then they

From Early Recommendations To E-Commerce

Pat Hugron 3:35

started dragging PRO members around and sitting them down in front of us and it was really, it was really revolutionary for them because we were promising a $99 web store a month with no setup fee at the time. And some of these guys had just spent 25, $30,000 on failed projects, because back then every website was a custom project almost. Yeah. And then they spent the next two days just dragging every member they crossed to our booth. And that's how we ended up in the, photo industry with the camera aspect of it. And then go on a few years, right? Back then you had LifeFix, you had PhotoJays. You had, desktop software as well to order pictures. And you had nothing that was seamless that was in the main website. So every retailer had, their little landing page, their studio page, their printing page, their- their camera page. And a kiosk, maybe two or three of them, because they've been through iterations. And back then they were major investments. So then somebody, challenged us to, to integrate for basic print ordering into the e-commerce platform. That someone was actually, Brian Wood-

Gary Pageau 4:42

Okay

Pat Hugron 4:42

who challenged us to do it. And in our hubris at the time we thought it'd be something simple. It was not.

Gary Pageau 4:49

That's usually the mistake people make when they get into the printing side. How hard can it be? It's a four by six print. It's just four inches by six inches. How hard can it be?"

Pat Hugron 4:59

Correct. And then we discover, the retailer needs to harness that order. It needs to go to the lab, all the different machines. And that's, the e-commerce portion brought us into the camera and photo space. And then obviously we called it the Photominator back then. That was when Arnold was governor, I think, so it was a trendy name. And, yeah, that's what launched us into the photo game. The Photominator. The Photominator, right? And our goal back then, very similar to our goal now, was to help simplify operations, make it easier on the retailer- and bring as many things together as we can. And I'm sure we'll talk about it later, but that's a goal that's even more important now because the amount of tools, the amount of software integrations has just multiplied- Years.

In-House Versus Outsourced Production

Gary Pageau 5:47

So let's talk a little bit about the evolution of the photo retail market, because it's changed so much over 'Cause you have, obviously you have websites, you've got mobile. You do have a lot of kiosks out there. People are still- plopping their butts down in front of a kiosk, which is just a computer, but it's, and people are still using that to a big degree. And, you've had to deal with the dynamic of in-store production versus outsource. How do you see that trend? 'Cause it used to be a lot of people would wanna produce everything in-house. But also there, you've gotta, you've gotta deal with a lot of outsource partners as well.

Pat Hugron 6:24

Yeah, and honestly, when we came into the printing industry, everyone thought that they could produce everything themselves, and actually we talked about it a little bit on the pre-show. Those early book machines that everybody bought. Yeah. And I think that's something most retailers have stopped trying to do. Which is a healthy thing. And I think most retailers we deal with focus on their specialty. So obviously most of them do the basic prints. They have either, wet or dry labs. Most of the retailers we talk to do large format, a certain amount of framing and laminating. But then when it comes to all of the gifting, that's outsourced now.

Gary Pageau 7:03

Yard signs

Pat Hugron 7:03

even.

Gary Pageau 7:04

Yard signs have become a big thing.

Pat Hugron 7:05

Correct. Yard signs are a big thing. We have some, I forget the name of the product, but all the realtor yard signs as well.

Gary Pageau 7:11

Yeah. the- yard

Pat Hugron 7:12

obviously all of the higher end photo books. Y- the embossed leather, the lay-flats. It's become a healthier ecosystem as far as outsourcing than it was before. But the most important thing and we were talking about it, just a few minutes ago, is it has to be seamless to the consumer- Yeah and to the lab.

Gary Pageau 7:31

Yeah.

Pat Hugron 7:31

When we started there in the photo industry I mentioned, they had all the disparate sites, but it was a different vendor for each channel. The kiosk would have an outsourced partner in certain products. The website would have an outsourced partner in certain products. When they were taking orders over the counter, it was different vendors and different products. It was like every touch point you had with a retailer- was a completely different experience and a completely different retailer.

Gary Pageau 7:55

And a different commerce platform, right? It's a commerce platform. 'Cause if they take it in over the counter, they're putting it into QuickBooks, and if they're taking it online- it's Stripe and who knows what else.

Pat Hugron 8:04

E- exactly. And for the consumer, there was consistency issues. They'd order a book, they need to go in store and they'd want the same one, but in store it wasn't available. And then nobody knew which platform was ordered on. W- was this one of the kiosk books or was it that old Kodak kiosk or that old HP kiosk? Which one did you order it on?

Gary Pageau 8:19

Yeah.

Pat Hugron 8:19

And it was a mess. So that evolution of in-store and out-lab- I think it's just about being seamless. Focus on what you're good at. If you're a big, graduation market, or big wedding market, or cards, get that press and specialize in that, and that's fine. But if that's not for you, that can be outlawed.

Gary Pageau 8:37

See, that's one- And then obviously- of the things I think, especially when I look at your typical, independent photo retailer, right? They get very excited about all the stuff they can make, right? They put in that UV printer, and they can make the golf balls, and the coasters, and all those things. They wanna do all that stuff, but it's really not the bulk of their market, and it can almost be- a distraction.

Pat Hugron 9:00

And I get excited about those products, too.

Gary Pageau 9:03

Yeah, we all do, right?

Pat Hugron 9:04

But yeah, what we've focused on telling our customers is focus on what you're good at. Focus on what the highest demand you have right now. And then that long tail, you can still offer it through outlaw partners that are high quality.

Gary Pageau 9:17

Yeah. Good. But then they got it, then in the back of their mind they're going, "But I gotta justify that LogoJET payment." So I want more

Pat Hugron 9:24

photo printers. Correct. If you do have the equipment, then obviously then market that. I mean-

Gary Pageau 9:30

Exactly.

Pat Hugron 9:31

do the SEO campaigns. Get those products on Google Marketplace. Do whatever you can to justify that machine that mortgage on that machine.

Film’s Comeback And Better Output

Gary Pageau 9:38

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what you're seeing just in the marketplace in general, right? Because one of the things I think that when we talk about photo now I'm doing air quotes for those who can't see. It's people don't print, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we all know that's not true, right? People- Oh, that's not true yeah, younger people are printing- We've seen- they're printing more and all this stuff. What are some of the trends you're seeing in, maybe even in the film side of the business in terms of the growth there, about the trend towards output?

Pat Hugron 10:09

So I didn't come, with hard numbers.

Gary Pageau 10:11

Right.

Pat Hugron 10:11

So we're gonna go with just,

Gary Pageau 10:13

Gut feelings

Pat Hugron 10:13

So obviously you touched on the big one, and it's been the big one for the last, say, five years. And that's the return of film. But the return of film in a way I don't think any specialty retailer has expected, just the growth there. And it's not just replacement. It's not just because labs have been taken away from the Costco or the big box stores, that there's really a resurgence in film and this resurgence of wanting something analog, wanting something you can touch, you can feel, you can experience. And it's really positive for the whole ecosystem because- it's that love of the game, that love of photo, that love of the hobby, that shines through on all the film. And that's taken retailers, unprepared. They were unprepared for that resurgence and they didn't have-

Gary Pageau 10:52

exactly

Pat Hugron 10:54

they didn't have the tools in store. They didn't have the processors-

Gary Pageau 10:57

lot of them were decommissioning their film processors, right? We're now- Correct seeing film processing equipment coming back into the IPI and Pro Shows, right?

Pat Hugron 11:05

New, correct. New equipment, brand new equipment, not just, recycled and rebadged and, and- Yeah and restored. And, and- and we've actually launched, what we call the film development module-

Gary Pageau 11:17

Yep

Pat Hugron 11:18

which is the work job workflow module which allows you to, create job tickets directly- Yeah in your MiDAQIS from a film sale e- either through the kiosk or online. And then follow that through to the POS even, and then- Yeah send out the files. A lot of labs are using Dropbox, things like that. But if you keep that in your ecosystem, then you can help generate more output, because a lot of that film is just being developed and scanned- and then sent out as digital files.

Gary Pageau 11:46

Right.

Pat Hugron 11:47

But we need to generate output from it, and we need to generate those hard copies.

Gary Pageau 11:51

Yeah. I bet, yeah, but it's going to Dropbox. Send it back. It's probably more of an arduous process to print that as opposed to having it within- I- a gallery within your MiDAQIS platform.

Pat Hugron 12:01

And it's not that arduous to take the file and then go to the website and then upload it back, but you're giving your co- your consumer, your customer that opportunity to go elsewhere, or that- opportunity to just forget and do something else.

Gary Pageau 12:14

Right.

Pat Hugron 12:14

Which, honestly, Which i-

Gary Pageau 12:15

which is

Pat Hugron 12:15

the

Gary Pageau 12:15

bigger- All which I think is the bigger challenge, right?

Pat Hugron 12:18

In 2026, your phone goes ding and you go away and, and- then you don't come back to it. And that's- probably what we're seeing more. So keeping that in the DAQIS environment, in, in what we call the pro event to send out the files, we're hoping that keeps customers engaged with the retailer's brand, the retailer's name, the retailer's site, the retailer's products and services. Obviously coming back for more film, but also doing something with that film once it comes back. So if you go to YouTube and you look for DAQIS, we have our own channel with a playlist. There's a bunch of training stuff there, but our webinars are also there as well, and there's one about the film dev which is very interesting. It goes through examples. It goes through how to set it up, and all of that. And we'll be covering that again. Obviously we have the boot camp at IPIC, which we'll be covering that as well.

What Unified Commerce Actually Means

Gary Pageau 13:01

So you've touched on a theme- about bringing it all together, having almost a, quote, "unified approach" of- So that's really where we wanted to get to, is talk about your unified commerce platform. Can you kinda touch on how you got there and what it is?

Pat Hugron 13:20

So how we got to the unified commerce, the idea of the unified commerce, is just seeing our customer base our, the, the stores that are using our platform just struggling with all the different pieces. Struggling with connecting their e-commerce inventory with their in-store inventory. Seeing them reconcile the orders they've taken over the counter with the orders they're taking online, and how those are different SKUs and products and pricing, and just getting that back together. Seeing them struggle at reconciling their PayPal payments and their in-store payments and all that accounting. And just tracking all those jobs and sending all that to the accountant. And it's just, it- every channel was creating a store's worth of work for them. And that was unsustainable and we could see a kind of IT burnout, if you will,

Gary Pageau 14:08

Right.

Pat Hugron 14:09

So the idea of unified commerce, we actually started that, several years ago by trying to integrate with the tools that were in place. So we already have integrations with PhotoWorks Computime to do price updates and things like that. We were a Lightspeed reseller for a while. Lightspeed series are. Inventory updates, shopping carts go out, go down to Lightspeed. And we saw the improvement in how those retailers operated online and also in store. And the next step was to bring it all to one software.

Gary Pageau 14:47

Right.

Pat Hugron 14:47

One platform. Even the connections that we made and the integrations that we made proved- onerous at times, in time and experience and just learning capacity. And just having those products, those SKUs in one platform- The simplicity that offers. And we got immediate, uptake and interest- when we started talking about it. So we've been working on that for- I'd say a good two years. And we have retailers onboarding right now. Going to all the nooks and crannies and discovering all the things that we made, and the onboarding processes are going pretty well.

Gary Pageau 15:21

So what's the- a well unified funnel so just for someone who's not familiar with your platform, when you mean unified, you're talking about hardware, over the counter retail products, right? If I buy- Correct a frame, if I buy a- And we- if I can buy a Neo Enterprises frame off the shelf and bring it in, it's gonna be tracked, that sale, through the POS and it'll be in the dashboard so I can see how many of those are being sold.

Pat Hugron 15:42

Exactly. So it can be sold over the counter, customer can grab it off the shelf, bring it to the front till. It can be shown online, and it's all the same product. So you're not tracking, different inventories. You're not reconciling data between systems. And it's really interesting because a customer could start an order online- Come in store to pay it, come in store to finish it, 'cause they needed help. Or they could start it in store, go back home- finish it at home.

Gary Pageau 16:07

Start it on their phone and finish

Pat Hugron 16:09

it in store. Correct. The retailer even has, we call it a save and send, but it's a quoting type feature where they can prepare a cart and add all the products. And this could be a camera as well as a canvas as well as a photo book. It can be really anything. It can be film development- things like that. And they can prepare the whole sale and then- Email that to the customer to pay on the website instead of taking- payment over the phone with the balance- One of the

Gary Pageau 16:31

a camera retailer is very interested in is- the add-on sales, right? For a camera pack. Correct. 'Cause that's really where they make the money. They don't make money off bodies. That's the sa- So th- that could help with that too, 'cause they could see what the add-on sales are, even if it's not a hard good, right? If they were to sell a, let's say someone buys a used camera, they could say, "Oh," and they bought five rolls of film with it, right? Correct. And then that's- Correct and that's all in the same

Pat Hugron 16:56

interface. And having that data in one place allows us to do some interesting things and we even have some, Some AI projects- 'cause that's the, that's the trend of the year- you gotta say AI

Gary Pageau 17:04

now.

Pat Hugron 17:04

Yeah, it's the trend of the year, it's the trend of the decade, but w- we're not trying to drop it as a buzzword. We never have. We've tried to stay away from the buzzwords. But there are some interesting projects that we have- coming up. A type of AI recommendation engine- For customers that purchased six months ago. Who bought a camera body six months ago, in our analysis, usually after six months the typical photographer gets a little antsy. They want a lens, they want a flash- Yeah they want something else to go with their kit.

Gary Pageau 17:30

Or even just have it cleaned, right? Just come in and have it

Pat Hugron 17:32

So a type of AI recommendation engine to to help identify which customers need a follow-up. We're not going full automatic yet, we're not gonna automatically- try to send something to the customer, because if it's the wrong thing. But we're gonna let retail involvement. That's one of the- AI projects we're looking at, and that's what having that unified commerce allows. Because no matter where they bought it, online or in store- We'll have that information and we'll be able to contact them.

Gary Pageau 17:57

So-

Pat Hugron 17:58

And then, across departments, you buy a print, offer a frame. Simple enough, but that's always been hard to do in the past.

Gary Pageau 18:06

So is this part of your basic MyDACA subscription? Is this a- an enhancement to something, or is this just part of what

Pat Hugron 18:14

I'd say it- it's a little bit of all of it. Some of the unified commerce features we baked into the basic plan. Being able to send out a quote- from in store that they can finish online, that's available to all- all the retailers. Things like the workflows and the work jobs, the core of that is available to all the retailers. But then there are some modules that are modules. So things like, the pro event, if you wanna use that workflow and make sure that they can order the prints, then you do need the pro event. It's not prohibitive.

Gary Pageau 18:45

Right.

Pat Hugron 18:45

And then the full POS with a cash register and integrated payments is also an add-on module. But all of it lives together. You're not installing a different piece of software. It's all in the same platform, so you're not, So

Gary Pageau 18:56

it's a checkbox on your account.

Pat Hugron 18:58

Correct. It's a checkbox on your account, and then those features get unlocked and we do the training, the onboarding-

Gary Pageau 19:03

so w- what's the rollout schedule for the unified commerce platform? You, it's been in process for a couple years and you've been releasing pieces of it, but when is it, like- The,

Pat Hugron 19:19

the last key piece officially here, if you will? So it is officially here. If you're a lab- If you're a camera store, everything you need is there. There are some modules that some retailers are waiting for, and the last big one is in production right now. The last big one is purchase orders. Everything that has to do with purchase orders and receiving inventory, receiving a shipment, tracking serial numbers. That's the last big module that's in development, and we expect that to be out- By end of July, maybe August- To be used by retailers.

IPIC Boot Camp And Hands-On Training

Gary Pageau 19:49

Now, you mentioned the boot camp at IPIC. Can you talk a little bit about- what that experience is gonna be like and how people can prepare for that?

Pat Hugron 19:59

So the boot camp at IPIC is something we haven't done in the last few years, but it's something we used to do under another name years ago. Really what it is it's hands-on training. We're gonna be there for five hours. Bring your laptops. Make sure you have all your logins and make sure you have all of your questions ready for any of the topics you want covered. And they can really be anything. It can be about creating the products in the manufacturer. It can be about setting up your different workflows for FilmDev. It can be- about preparing your account for the unified commerce point of sale, so all the different products and services that aren't necessarily in your marketplace- it's really about the retailer and what they need. We have obviously a few set topics we're gonna wanna cover with everyone because those are the ones that came back, the most. So that's obviously setting up workflows, setting up FilmDev, getting ready for unified commerce, on- hands-on training on, doing an in-store transaction, doing an in-store refund, all of those things- which, which didn't exist before. And then it's also come prepared with questions. We're gonna keep sending those out, and we're- we're gonna send the last one out before IPIC. So a little bit, after this episode, you're probably gonna get, One last survey or one last reminder- One last gasp about the boot camp. One last, one last grasp. But it's important. If you're coming to the boot camp, take it seriously and send us what you wanna talk about, because we will- prepare the accounts, we will prepare those topics ahead. Okay. So it's really about what our retailers need help with, and also showcasing and training on those, new modules and new

Gary Pageau 21:32

Okay.

Where To Learn More And Reach DAKCS

Gary Pageau 21:33

So where can people go for more information about the DAKCS system? If either, if they're- Okay gonna be at IPIC, or if they're not gonna be at IPIC, where can they get more information?

Pat Hugron 21:44

Okay. So our trade show schedule this year, we're obviously doing IPIC, end of July. So obviously if you're an IPI member, I'm sure if you're not an IPI member, IPI will be happy to explain to you how that works and how you can come to IPIC. We are at the PRO show in the fall. We are at Photo Source as well in the fall. So those are the in-person places. Obviously you can go to daks.com. I'm gonna tell you our website needs to be spruced up a little bit, and we're- in

Gary Pageau 22:11

That's everyone's problem, right?

Pat Hugron 22:12

so by, on daks.com obviously you'll find more information. There's a lot of resources on YouTube. We have a YouTube channel. Matt Hopkins, one of our, designers is also one of our trainers now, and he's been doing a lot of videos, how to use the web editor, how to... A lot of how-tos on, on the new, new site commas as well. So there's more information there, and then obviously you can reach out, by email directly. You can reach out. Sales@daks.com is the simplest. I know it's a roll email. People don't like roll emails. But if you send something to sales@daks.com, you will be heard by either myself- By Patrick Gauvin, or by Ryan Fleury. Those are the three people that monitor that box. So- Awesome I know people don't like roll emails, they're impersonal, but I'm telling you, this is a personal one. It goes right to us. It doesn't go to a bot. You're not gonna get some AI response. You're gonna get an actual DAKCS-

Gary Pageau 23:01

Awesome

Pat Hugron 23:02

employee. Great, Pat.

Gary Pageau 23:03

It's great to see you. Best wishes in, at the South Point, at IPIC, and we'll see you hopefully in the fall at, PRO.

Pat Hugron 23:12

And I'm very saddened to hear that I won't see you this year at IPIC. But congratulations to your family

Final Thoughts And Farewell

Pat Hugron 23:18

and, and, have a great, trip.

Gary Pageau 23:20

Thank you. Appreciate it. Take care.