It depends. You have
a few options, but, first you have to figure a few things out.
The last time you visited one of the office supply
superstores like Staples, Office Max, or Office Depot, I'm sure you saw row
after row of desktop units that copy, print, scan and/or fax. When I was an Account Executive and Sales
Manager at a leading copier manufacturer, I spent a lot of my time fielding
questions from small business owners asking if they really needed to go to a
big copier company to purchase a new copier.
As I told them, here are a few things you should consider:
1. What is your
total monthly copy and/or print volume? If
you don't know the answer to this question, go and pull your invoices for your
last paper purchase. Estimate what
percentage of paper was used for which function. For instance: 60% used for print jobs, 30% for
copy jobs and 10% for faxing. You bought
10 reams of paper at 500 sheets of paper per ream. You used it all up within a two-month time
frame. Therefore, you copy and print approximately 2,000 images per month (90%
of 5,000 sheets=4,000/2months, scans don't use up paper). If your volume is well below 1,000 per month,
your needs are probably best served by the office supply superstore. Don’t stop there, but, read on...
2. Do you make
any color prints or color copies? If so,
how important is image quality to you? Generally speaking, the image quality on the
desktop units is fairly basic and not conducive to the creation of impressive
marketing materials or photo quality printing. The "big boys" do a better job at
this.
3. Are you
outsourcing any copy or print volume (black/white and color)? If so, have you considered bringing those jobs
in-house? Oftentimes, it is cheaper to
do these kinds of jobs on your own system, but, this increased volume should be
computed into the final monthly volume for your new copy system.
4. Is your volume
fairly even throughout the year, or do you have wide ranging spikes in volume
during certain times of the year? For
example, an accountant might see volume quadruple during tax time and would
want to select a system that is able to withstand this level of seasonal wear
and tear.
5. Once you find
a model you are interested in at the office supply store, ask what the price is
for the toner cartridge. Ask what the
toner yield is and what the fill ratio is for that toner yield. Ask if the drum cartridge is a separate unit
and if so, what the drum yield on that part is. Use this information to figure out what is
your cost per copy/print for this model. The equation is: toner cost/toner yield + drum
cost/drum yield= total consumable costs. The fill ratio is an important detail to ask
about.
Usually, these figures are quoted on an industry wide
standard of a 6% fill ratio. This means you take a blank piece of paper and
transfer toner ink to only 6% of coverage on the page. Effectively, this is the equivalent of a two
sentence letter. How often do you copy
or print a page with much more ink on the page? I would imagine the answer is....a lot. You must account for this disparity by
assuming the toner yield will truly only is about 25% of what was quoted to
you. Compare this figure to the quote
you receive from the copy manufacturer. Usually,
you will pay much more for an equivalent copier purchased from a copy
manufacturer, but, the cost to operate it, is often much less because the toner costs are
much cheaper. It is well worth your time
to make these comparisons to make sure you are getting the most bang for your
buck.
6. Do you want to
be able to call a service technician and have him come straight to your office
to repair the system? Usually an office
supply superstore requires you to bring the system into the store for repairs
or even ship it back to the manufacturer yourself, if there are any problems. Make no mistake about it, the system will need
repairs.
7. Do you want
the option of leasing the equipment through a capital lease? There are many tax advantages as well as cash
flow considerations in favor of leasing. A manufacturer of multifunctional devices can
provide you with many leasing options that an office supply superstore cannot.
You have a lot to consider before you acquire the
multifunctional device that keeps your business running like clockwork.
You Need a Correct-Tek Copier Repair Services, Refurbished and New Copier Sales Parts..
More Details - http://www.ctcopiers.com/hp-printer-repair/4588158193
No comments:
Post a Comment