Canon CSA Lifeway Contract pricing

Wish I could help, maybe Eddy can help you

Jason, haven't heard that one in our area .......yet.  As we all know CSA is the golden child of Canon built on the backs of the hardwork the independent dealer community has put forth since the inception of the Canon copier.  We all see how well a "direct" outfit works not to mention the disention it causes amongst us as indys and the current customer being proposed by CSA.  I've fielded the question already of "why are they 50% less than you but your service as a whole is considerably better than theirs?"  

Since the PTP program came around, the ability to propose to mainly churches has been cramped.  This has made us quote our second line a lot more, which is a shame because a lot of churches benefit from the might of Canon.  

Jason you've got my contact or LinkedIn I believe if you ever wanted to chat more.  Keep fighting brother!

Well, I just got off the phone with the church client that was the reason this post was ever written and of course they decided to go with CSA. The lower we went to keep them, the lower they went to get them.

Check out this ludicrous pricing:

Canon IRC7565 w/ booklet maker and punch unit

Canon IRC5555 w/ booklet maker, punch unit, and cassette Feed Unit

Canon IRC5535 w/ staple finisher, punch kit and cassette feed unit.

Payment $900.00 for 36 months - $1 out lease. - Roughly $28,000.00 for all three systems. 

@TML @Art Post 

Click rate must have been about 4 cents for color and .005 for black and white. 

🤔 how does that math even freakin compute?  I spoke with our TSE and he said CUSA cannot wait for this contract to expire because they lose huge on this contract.  Makes you wonder how CSA can maintain GP or even their business when they give it away below cost.  Oh yea!  It's the Indys that don't get these stupid discounts that make up for it.  Sorry to hear man, keep swinging the bat and stay vigilant with them for service.  

Yeah I can’t figure out the math on that at all. Yes the indy’s Are the ones who help with csa’s losses each year. Unreal but, oh well, we have it our best shot. Sucks to lose a customer of about 15 years but will keep up with them for service and see what happens. 

Jason

We had the same **** happen with Ricoh,  since the selling of the SMB accounts, we don't see that anymore with commercial accounts.  Ricoh did hold municipal, state, education, health, production and I believe law.

What comes around goes around and I believe you'll see the selling  of the SMB accounts in the near future. 

I mean, how long can dealers continue to subsidize Canon USA Direct Sales?

Yes sir, what comes around goes around.

ive heard from several ricoh dealers who bought RBS accounts that they are losing their asses because of the pricing the customers were paying and how it’s not even remotely profitable. A couple I’ve talked to are going and trying to increase service rates because the rates are at a loss. Ricoh handled it so bad that the dealers were going to the accounts they acquired to put stickers on the machines etc and customers were kicking them out because they knew nothing about the sell off and they wouldn’t let the dealer touch the machine.

i think CSA will sell their accounts next. I mean, I thought ricoh was bad before, but CSA is out of control! Dealers can only subsidize the losses for so long.

the only thing I can do, I guess, is continue to send emails to our dealer reps, regionals, and some of the Canon corporate people I’ve met over the years sharing my displeasure of how it all has gone down over the years and maybe something will eventually change.

squeaky wheel gets the grease

CSA is just awful.  We've got two different branches who dip into our geography to compete at times.  Their service is bad, very slow but their pricing is so stupid low that it doesn't even make sense.  CUSA's answer to it, stick another dealer in our geography........  

What I can tell you from selling for a Ricoh dealer is that we don't see that pressure anymore with SMB accounts. In fact we hardly see Ricoh Direct at all in a Major market.  It has led to increased GP, not much but some.

You can only hope that repeated open discussions like these will turn some heads at Canon USA. We just need to keep up the pressure

Yes we don't run into RBS very much at all anymore. We keep up the pressure and see what happens....

Agreed!  We still have RBS in production accounts around here.  How they still buy from them when presented with the Nikkei article (https://asia.nikkei.com/Busine...-sink-or-swim-moment) is beyond me.  In particular when the RBS branches have been sold.  Must be a combo of strong sales tactics, but really in production/print shops, they're probably just giving them the equipment.  

Now, to hope that CUSA dishes out some good strategic pricing credits for a few deals I've got cooking.  I'm sure CSA would already have received them, but hey, keep fighting!

Just today this person vetted me on Linkedin,  guess it was in reference the continued talk about CUSA and Lifeway Contract.

Nice!  Probably an empty suit and wasted payroll dollars!  

Any more Canon P4P'ers care to comment on CUSA?

Sorry to hear about this, it'll catch up soon enough. The reps are making scraps on deals like this. I had one of my reps on a similar priced contract break into tears when she only made $250 on a $50K deal that she worked 6 months for. 

@Art Post that's interesting. I too have seen my linkedin page visited by all kinds of CSA people the last few days.