Sometimes when we walk into a copier opportunity, we are walking into an unwinnable situation, or I have yet to acquire the skills to win the copier deal.  We see people sign up for terrible copier deals and there are some common elements we see in these bad deals.

The biggest mistake we see people make when buying a copier is rushing to get a quote rather than taking their time to ensure the quote they are getting is for the correct copier to begin with.

We will get a call with a question like, “Can we get a quote for a Kyocera Copystar 3060 with 3 trays, the fax card, the saddle stitch finisher, the extra 512MB of RAM and the scanning feature?”  If I ask how they arrived at this machine, I often get an answer back that “we know this is the machine we want, so can we just get a quote?”   Basically, what this tells me is that I have no real chance to get the business.  Someone has already approached them with a copier deal, it sounds good to them and now they just want to make sure they are not getting screwed.  Fair enough, but hard to get excited about the opportunity for me because they already trust the other copier dealer enough that they are sure they want to go with his/her recommendation.  They just want to make sure that company doesn’t make much money.

Now, if they would go through the extra 10 minutes of my questions, they may find out that they don’t need tabloid copy capability, or that this is simply too much machine for them, or they may discover this is indeed the best copier for their needs.  It is hard for me to help when these situations come up and as much as I want to sell them their next copier in Denver, I am still not too excited to even quote as my experience has taught me they will just use my quote to lower my competitors pricing.  Rarely will I get a fair chance.  In these situations, I simply shoot a quick E mail with some prices as I don’t want to get too involved in a quote I cannot win.

The second most common copier buying mistake in Denver that I see is getting a color copier when color is totally not needed.

This is a common issue when a competitor offers a free upgrade to color.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to print in color if needed?  Of course it would be, but these companies are generally banking on the fact companies that have color and don’t manage it strictly tend to print way more in color than they would like to.

The final most common mistake I see is getting too hung up on one train of thought.

Some common ones out there are just looking at the speed per minute (and not paying attention to warm up times), deciding on stapling when only used once a year, wanting a specific brand like Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Xerox or Toshiba and nothing else, or resolution of a color copier (and not image quality).  All of these are indeed an important consideration, but when they become the ONLY buying factor, they can add thousands of dollars to the ultimate bill.  We recommend taking all the facts about the copier you intend to purchase and then when all these facts are weighed, rewarding the Denver business that gave you the most appealing offer.

If you would like a copier quote here in Denver, please give us a call today!

Japanese Tsunami Affects Denver

I am sure that everyone is aware that a Tsunami hit Japan, we all we awe stuck as we saw the images of the destruction and chaos.  As you can imagine, any cataclysmic event that strikes the heart of one of the top 5 world economies will certainly have an effect world wide.  We are seeing the effects here in Denver as there is back orders on copiers who have manufacturing headquarters or operational headquarters in Japan.

So, which of the great copier companies are affected the most by the Tsunami?  Here are some of the major copier companies and their headquarters:

• Xerox – Rochester, NY and Wilsonville, OR.
• HP – Palo Alto, CA
• Kyocera Mita — Osaka, Japan
• Canon — Toyko, Japan
• Konica Minolta — Toyko, Japan
• Lexmark — Lexington, KY
• Toshiba — Toyko, Japan
• Ricoh — Toyko, Japan

As you can see, many of the major copier manufacturers out there are Japanese.  Now, this affects lead time for everyone.  First, the major Japanese copier companies will be affected and as they are unable to fulfill demand, the American manufacturers will see a run on their inventory.  If you are buying a copier with a Japanese manufacturer and your copier dealer does not have the copier in stock, there should be a concern about getting the copier in a timely manner.  Some people are also concerned about the radiation from the nuclear plant that was in danger, but we don’t see that as a major concern at this point.  We sell Xerox and Lexmark as our primary two brands as we try and support American manufacturers of copiers.

Please give us a call if you would like a copier quote in Denver!

There are many copier manufacturers who are doing “direct sales” these days.  There are associated benefits and detriments to purchasing from a manufacturer direct.  First of all, what copiers can you buy direct?  Xerox copiers, Lexmark copiers, HP copiers, Ricoh copiers, Canon copiers, Oce copiers, Toshiba copiers, Konica Minolta Copiers, the list gets endless.  So why buy from a manufacturer?  Conversely, what are disadvantages?

Advantages of buying a copier from a manufacturer:

• When there is a lemon, they are able to swap out and usually do it quicker
• Their set up engineers often are better at independent reps because they are just dealing with one brand rather than 4, they can learn them better
• They tend to stock a few more parts

Disadvantages:

• Customer service takes a hit in most cases, you get to call to India before you get a real service call going
• They tend to lack loaner devices or are unwilling to deploy them
• They are more rigid on contractual terms
• They are often more expensive using “canned” pricing rather than using special pricing so they can beat the competition.

So, why do manufacturers want to sell direct at all?  Profits.  If they can make an extra $1,000 on a copier deal and not share, that can be appealing.  The problem for them is if they get too aggressive selling direct, every reseller they work with will start switching their installed base with competition.  HP has been experiencing this a lot more over the last few years, so they are losing some printer market share.  Why?  No one can make money and people usually like to work with someone local!

If you are looking for a copier in Denver, please give us a call!

We have filing cabinets filled with contracts and invoices and want to have these migrate from paper copies to electronic copies.  We would like to be able to index a few fields like customer names and dates so that when we are looking for an invoice and contract, it would just be able to quickly retrive those from anywhere we can tie into the Network.  We don’t want to spend $10,000 or $20,000 on the solution because we just don’t think we use it constantly.  We use it enough to pay for a solution, but would like this to be simple and straightforward and work with our copier…  We run Small Business Server and Windows XP on the workstations if that matters.

Proposed Solution:

In your case scenario above KyoCapture Express with a Kyocera copier would be an excellent option.  Since you are running Server 2003, I would suggest downloading the Sharepoint Services 3.0 plug in as well as the SQL Express plugin.  Both are free and in conjunction with your current infrastructure, sevrver 2003, would give you a great Document Management Solution.  You could then have a process to input your customer contracts using the indexing criteria outlined below.   You could add the barcode option for less key input at the Kyocera MFP or add the desktop indexing component QuickCapture Pro for inputting to the process and routing to the SharePoint site.  
        Utilizing the SharePoint option gives you the ability to create multiple document libraries while utilizing the security features inherent in server 2003.  It also allows you to share the information contained within those libraries, set up multiple libraries and with the KyoCapture Express option allows you to build in multiple business processes.As with any solution you should also design a back up procedure for the SQL database and Sharepoint site.  This can be done easily with the suite described above.

Please give us a call if you are looking for answers like this to address your migration to a “paperless office.”

The first thing to know is that the toner is what is called emulsion aggregate toner.  Basically, what this means is that the toner has been organically grown to be a consistent (and very small) particle size so that less toner can be used on the page and more consistent color can be acheived.  The biggest benefit to you is 30% less toner is used and therefore the per print costs go down substantially.

Kyocera has made this machine so that your per print color costs should be less than $.06 per page.  This is the best rate in the industry at this point in time, so it’s definately worth checking out.  If you do not need tabloid, it’s likely this copier is not the best fit based on equipment costs, but if you do, this is definately a top of the line copier with rock bottom color prices.

So, why would a company want to look at this device at all?  How does going 80 pages per minute without the hassle of constant service calls sound?  The reason is this is a workhorse like no other copier out there.  We have seen companies use this device to print over 400,000 impressions a month.  When you start speaking about that volume, suddenly the acquisition price becomes a smaller factor than running cost. The running cost is definately the least expensive to copier to run in Denver.  It is not the cheapest to buy, or even close, but running costs are amazing.  For High Volume applications (greater than 40,000 impressions per month) this is a great copier which requires very little maintenance and is super cheap to run per copy.

For more specific information on the Kyocera 8030 copier in Denver, please visit our sister site at:

http://www.laserprintercenter.com/LaserPrinters/Kyocera_CS_8030_1073.htm

This copier moves along at 40 impressions a minute and we would have no problem at all selling this device to someone doing 50,000 impressions a month.  It is very rugged and easy to maintain (according to our technicians). 

It’s biggest weakness would be the interface still needs some work.  It is pretty good, but it needs to be a little friendlier.  It is imperative that you get professional set up as then the device will be extremely easy to use.  If you are looking for a rock solid, balck and white, tabloid capable copier which provides excellent copiers and options, you need to consider this particular unit.

Rating — 4.5 Stars out of five for A3 capable copiers.

3 Stars out of 5 of 5 if tabloid is not needed.

Please see this site for more detailed product information:

http://www.laserprintercenter.com/LaserPrinters/Kyocera_CS_4050_1070.htm

From  an environmental standpoint, the Kyocera 5050 does a great job on power savings as well as having scant amounts of waste.  The 5050 is a great black and white system for a volume of between 15,000 and 50,000 pages per month.

For detailed specs, etc please visit our sister site:

http://www.laserprintercenter.com/LaserPrinters/Kyocera_CS_5050_1071.htm