Copier Buying Mistakes – Most Commonly Seen

Most Common Copier Buying Mistakes…

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!