How to Buy a Copier

There are many good copiers on the market today. Some are small personal copiers to high-speed duplicators. Most manufacturers offer a wide range of features, from basic black and white copying to color copying, reduction and enlargement, automatic duplexing, sorting and stapling and even binding. All of these features add to the cost of the machine.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. You may need to ask yourself if you need a multi-function copier or not. Questions might be, How many copies will I make a month? What features do I require? Space and machine size? How soon will I outgrow the machine?

2. It is important to realize there are three grades of copiers and each grade fits a certain niche. Decide your basics needs and you can begin looking at the advantages and disadvantages of those grades.

3. The PC or personal copier grade is designed to produce around 1,000 copies per month. They are generally inexpensive to buy, have a few features and have a high cost per copy and don't need someone to come to your home for servicing. They have a quick warm up, customer replaces drum and copy cartridge and low purchase price. A few disadvantages would be slow copying per minute, high cost of copies around 7 to 8 cents each and lack of service and features.

4. Business grade copiers have higher volume, one to 50,000 copies per month, depending on model, many features available, and low cost per copy about 1 to 15 cents per copy which includes toner and paper. They also have best overall value.
   
   Commercial grades have 50 copies or more per minute, high monthly volume and many features including binding, stapling, duplexing, etc.

5. If you need color, it can be achieved by buying a low cost color multi-function machine using an ink jet. Cost per copy is 25 to 30 cents and sometimes slow in printing. Color technology is faster and more economical. Cost per copy is around 10 cents and color copiers are fastest and the most economical for large volume users.

6. Do you need special features like oversized copies or two-sided copies, finishing, stapling, sorting, or collating?
   How many copies will you make a month? is your business growing? who do I buy from? should all be considered.
   
   Consider an authorized dealer who will guarantee parts and toner. The toner and parts should be made by the manufacturer not discount toner, to ensure quality of copies and longer life of the equipment. The factory should have trained representatives. Be sure and check the references of the dealer, maintenance agreements and warranties. Find out if they can resolve a problem quickly or do they get someone from 100 miles away. Last, but not least is, do you buy a straight out purchase, lease or lease/purchase. These are all for your consideration.

[johndavidsson]

on 2/8/2009 These are great suggestions. Knowing what you want (and what your business needs) is crucial, but having a reliable and trustworthy Account Rep is invaluable.

Chances are good that your business will inevitably work with an Account Representative from a local vendor (Xerox, Canon, Konica Minolta, Ricoh, etc.)

Since I am in the copier/printer/multi-function machine industry myself I would highly recommend asking an Account Representative for reference letters.

Personally I have over two dozen and I think this adds a great deal of credibility to my suggestions: I can PROVE how I have been able to save my customers' time and money.



Best,

John Davidsson
Xerox/QBSI Account Manager
425-896-5038
[e-mail]