"Copy Machine Sales" Copier Manufacturers Confuse Me

Question: How do copier companies make money? Answer: By putting ink or toner on paper. Very simple right?

In a recent press release by Xerox, "more than 70 percent of Xerox total revenue comes from sales of supplies and services -- also known as "post-sale."


A recent press release by Ricoh in Europe made this statement: Chief executive Nigel Palmer revealed that printers now account for about half of Ricoh’s revenue and he told resellers that a move towards selling them should be a priority.“If you are not already doing it, please do it quickly. Within two years, three quarters of sales will be printers,” he said.





The Big Lie?


I have an issue here, I keep reading all of the hype about "Going Green" saving paper, do more scanning, print two sided more often and the latest craze is "Print Management Solutions"

Hey, if you're in the business of putting ink or toner on paper then why are manufacturers such as Xerox, Ricoh, Canon, KonicaMinolta, Sharp, Kyocera, Oce and Toshiba pushing scanning solutions such as Document Management Software? Scanning documents and not copying them should decrease paper usage, save trees, save oil, and other resources right??? Well, not entirely true from what I've heard, in fact scanning solutions may actually increase the amount of paper you use! Fact is most people who need to review a document will print it first and then make notes or markups on the document.


Most of these pages will be printed to low cost printers that are located next to the user and have a higher cost per page than multifunctional copiers and almost all of the low end printers use AIO cartridges (All in One, toner, drum, developer unit), its estimated that half of these end up in the landfills. So, if we're using more paper, more ink and toner, and more cartridges how the heck are we "Going Green" and how are we saving resources?


I have a current customer that scans every document they receive, they then index and archive the documents. Before they started scanning their monthly volume of copies and prints was about 25,000 pages. One year later, their volume is now 34,000 pages per month!





"Going Green"


Here's a thought, most manufacturers have reclamation facilities that will accept spent cartridges. You can ship the empties back at no charge, why not implement some type of credit to the end user for returning all of the spent cartridges, the drum kits, and fuser kits. Once at the reclamation center, they can be rebuilt or recycled! Manufacturers may be able to capture more of these cartridge's and decrease the amount going to landfills.

Remember the first two statements? 70% of Xerox revenue if from supplies and service, Ricoh states that three quarters of sales will be printers.

Scanned documents migrate to lower end printers with a high cost per page. Whats the answer, Print Management software can re-direct print jobs to more efficient printers that have a lower TCO, and paper will never go away!





-=Good Selling=-