10 Copier Buying Mistakes to Avoid

Avoid Increasing Rates Over Time If you are about ready to sign a copier contract, look for wording like “We reserve the right to annually increase the click rates by 7% to address rising costs of parts and service” -- Most companies who have this in their contract will execute it. If you have a bill that is $150 per month, take a look at what happens with this one “little provision” Signing a lease with this one provision would cost your company more than an extra $1,200 over the 5 years!

Don’t Forget Your Users!!  Keep Your Employees Happy! Every organization who purchases a copier has different levels of users, different expectations and different needs. Your users may be sophisticated and can use templates to speed up their work, or they may need as simple of an interface as possible. Take the time to understand what the people who are going to use the copier everyday need. This will eliminate a lot of frustration down the road and help everyone be happy with your copier buying decision!

 Leases generally require you give notification of your intent to return the copier you currently own, or they can automatically renew the lease for another year. Check your current paperwork for wording that indicates what happens if you don’t notify them of your desire to return your current equipment.

Avoid Unnecessary Upgrades in Technology  Pay for What You Need! Every copier rep prefers to sell a $10,000 copier over a $5,000 copier. You will be presented a lot of features. Make sure you get the ones you do need and avoid the ones you don’t. The most commonly sold and unused features include: Stapling 11 X 17 Capability Fax Booklet Making Hole Punching

It’s a common practice for copier companies to come to their customers 6 month’s before their current lease is over to switch them to a new copier. This is done so that competitors will be put at a disadvantage if they quote as the company carrying the lease and the prints can discount some of this for themselves, and charge full price plus a premium to a competitor. It will look good. A new copier at a slightly lower price than today. Waiting it out may cut your costs in half rather than the 5 % or so the current copier company is proposing. The money left in the current contract has to be financed into the new lease, so you will essentially be paying for 2 copiers for 6 months rather than just one. We can spend more time helping you understand why this really matters, just give us a call and we will be happy to help you run the financials on why this is a bad deal for you.

Other Automations Copiers today can have all kinds of automations to improve speed and efficiency in an office. Document management, mobile print capability, scan to USB, print from USB, searchable pdf features, Bates stamping, saddle stitching are among just a few of the features commonly available, but rarely utilized because the customer is unaware of the feature or it was never set up for them. This can lead to frustrations from office workers that are completely unnecessary!

Make sure the company you work with are giving you a fair deal. It makes sense to stay with a group you trust and who has treated you well if the numbers are about the same. If they are way out of line, rewarding the company with the high price with a chance to “fix” their quote only encourages them to keep trying to charge too much.

Employees with a color copier will often print out color on files the owner or IT department thinks should be B& W. If you don’t actually need color, avoid it as it will eliminate the temptation to use color when not necessary. If it is needed, you need to buy it, just set 2 drivers up. 1 for color printing and one for Black and White. This way, employees aren’t printing out research and mapquest maps in color. Just the marketing files that truly need color.

 Copier sales reps are famous for trying to get customers to get rid of all their printers so the volume goes to the copiers. Depending on the printers you have, you may be better off keeping those “expensive” laser printers. Check out this example… (Doing 8,000 pages a month) – You could avoid maintenance and have the $.0046 (half a penny) or have it fully covered under a penny and there is no new equipment to purchase! Do the math before you believe what the rep is saying about your laser printers. Lexmark T644 Laser Printer 8,000 pages/month) Toner Yield 32,000 Pages Toner Cost (Reman) $149 Cost per Print = $.0046 per Print Maintenance Average per Month = $20 Total Average Cost per Print = $.0071

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