Yeah, photo lab has been a dying art for the past 5 years. It started back in 2009 or whenever specialists were cut. Not too long after that, hours went from 8a-9p to 12p-6p. Then hours were kind of flexible based upon front-end needs. Neither of the two stores I worked at had photo labs up with guest service. One was tucked away (greatland store) behind MMB, the other store had photo directly behind the check lanes, adjacent to the elevator and in-between intimate wear/accessories.
The store with it behind MMB was tough. It wasn't along the racetrack or or a high traffic area. You had to WANT photo finishing done, or else you'd never know it was there. It was nice hiding back there. No sight lines to any other TM, unless the elec TM was zoning. There was a closet and a fridge, too, so we really loved being there. We had a constant stream of guests. We'd easily clear $600/day, though, due to our up-selling and our great guest service. Culture in the store became hostile towards photo during the 12-6 hours. I was still in school, so I couldn't make it there until 4 at best. I eventually started taking more hardlines and guest service shifts. I eventually got trained in GSA and finally had the ability to xfer out of that hell-hole.
Second store was much more visible. Essentially it was at the focal point of the store. Unless you were going to pfresh or hba, you had to walk right by photo. If you came from pfresh/market to the checklanes, you would end up walking by it to get to the checklanes. You'd think this place would be a goldmine for up-selling, eh? HAHA! It became the "express" checkout aka GSTL/GSA boat. We rarely had anyone in photo scheduled. When there was a person on the grid, it was usually the tail-end of a GSA doing a 239 shift when cashier hours were tight. Or, on Wednesday, that was where the GSTL scheduled his hours so he could go into the office and do paperwork/scheduling. We didn't even have a poster printer there! Those provide the biggest profit margin of all services! Anyways, I ended up taking responsibility for photo and ran most of the orders myself. I trained the other GSTLs/GSAs to do simple picture orders and I tried to teach bookbinding. Haha, that was funny.
Photo is one of those niche services like portrait studio, and optical. Those are probably going away in the near future, too. More stockroom space, am I right? If someone from corporate marketing tried and put a little(!) effort in, photo could be profitable. Even a dry lab with two kiosks, a duplex and a poster printer with an APEX processor with 6 hours of payroll a day can turn a profit if there was some forethought into branding and up-selling.