Single click 11 x 17

This is rampant all over single click charge for 11 x 17. In the long run the dealer or direct operation loses money on the client especially since most 11 x 17 solid fill is quite high. All anyone is thinking about is the easy way out to sell color. Unfortunatley I do not see it changing anytime soon. It is bad for the industry and drains service department profits.

It is and I see it everywhere and mostly from Direct branches. We can't do it and management will never do it. Too me, this is a deal breaker in most P4P accounts. It's too bad that Dealers subsidize the Direct Branches.

Maybe emails to top Management at Ricoh, Canon, KonicaMinolta and Xerox will shed light on this. Who knows maybe someone is keeping them in the dark?

The surprise in this particular account is that only 1 of the competitors is a Direct branch, because we previously only saw it from the local Canon branch. So far, the only thing we've tried to do is lose the competition money if we lose out by telling the customer to print everything 2 up and buy a cutter from us to cut those documents. Have you been able to overcome this in order to win a transaction?

Sometimes I have asked the customer how many 11x17's are they going to run per month. If it's a monochrome deal. Lets say a HV and the cpc is .005, and they tell me they are going to run 10,000 per month. Thats equates to a cost of $50 per month, I will reclarify all of the benefits why we are worth $50 more per month, and may even subsidize the cost by lowering the month lease cost by a few dollars.

Anyone else out there on how to compete with 11x17 single click?

quote:

Originally posted by Art Post:
Sometimes I have asked the customer how many 11x17's are they going to run per month. If it's a monochrome deal. Lets say a HV and the cpc is .005, and they tell me they are going to run 10,000 per month. Thats equates to a cost of $50 per month, I will reclarify all of the benefits why we are worth $50 more per month, and may even subsidize the cost by lowering the month lease cost by a few dollars.

When it comes to b/w, it's fairly easy to overcome, because you aren't talking a significant amount of money. However, in a color scenario when you're talking even as low as $.06 per page, upping that to $.12 per 11 x 17 when they plan on running a lot of 11 x 17 booklets is a different story. We just can't figure out how to overcome the competition charging half price for color 11 x 17.

Yup, I agree with the color scenario! It's hard to beat, almost impossible.

The only way is that hopefully manufacturers will develop print only devices with fiery again. It seems that they all have moved away from this type of system. The only current mid volume color printer I know of is the C9800 from Oki, and alas this is to be discontinued after the inventory has been depleted and there are no plans from Oki to replace the C9800.

There should be alternative choices to print professional color on a laser printer. 30,40, and 50 ppm models with finishing capabilities could do very well in P4P environments.

Dealers who travel down the road of 11x17 single click color will not be in the business long. Direct Branches offering this will will continue until they lose too much money, until then dealers will be subsidizing Direct Branches this for them.

I was told at a coporate launch that the USA distributors are just a great big dealer for the manufacturers in japan. All of the money from direct branches and dealers go into the general funds. Heck as long as ther're making money at the end of the year, what do they care if their direct operation loses money. It's all about profit.

Has anyone else seen the trend of 11x17 charged for 1 click increasing - we see Xerox doing it and our local sharp dealer - what are you guys seeing?

Thanks

We have started to see it more and more over the past year. The scary thing isn't that it is being quoted; it is how low the rates are that we are seeing. For example, $.0600 is VERY aggressive for my company for 8 1/2 x 11, but we are seeing the likes of Xerox, IKON, Canon Direct & KMBS quote $.055 single click 11 x 17 on a regular basis. We just have to walk away from those kinds of deals if that is a major priority for the customer.

We've seen it Jersey for many years, it's now the norm for Print4Pay accounts. I really don't even bother with P4P any more unless it's an existing account. We can't sell single click at .055 either.

On the other hand I heard the new MPC6501 and MPC7501 are defaulted from factory for single click 11x17 (please someone correct me, if I'm wrong), if I am wrong then the system had a much lower wholesale cpp to combat single click 11x17. Can anyone else verify?

How I have handled these sort of issues is to guarantee in writing my service rate not to increase for the entire life of the lease for up to 5 years. I explain to the customer that the competition typically as a matter of rutine increases their service plan by 5 to 12 percent compounding per year and that it is found in the fine print of their service contract document. I advise the customer to ask the competitor for a copy of the actual service contract they will be signing from the competitor. When the customer sees the hidden increase in the fine print the competitor loses a great deal of credibility.

In any competitive quote I put the price guarantee right on the original quote.

If its the only way to win the deal we will match the competitor and guarantee the price. Whatever it takes to win the deal particularly if its a direct operation we are competing with.

On Toshiba copiers we have a feature that can be turned on via Service Code called a Pixel Counter. It accurately measures the % of toner on a particular page or as an average since the feature was turned on.

If you have to quote 11 x 17 as a single click, do so only as 5-6% coverage. If the customer exceeds the previously agreed upon toner consumptism, you can increase the cpc at the annual cpc review.

National copier vendors certainly relentlessly increase the cpc after one year without remorse.

I always state in my quotes the the cpc charge is for 8.5 x 11" page. I can double click Letter-R, Legal, Thick and Special paper sizes if I want to.

Any customer that is not profitable is not worth having. I acknowledge that may be a utopian world. We have National vendors who may not be in touch with the profitability on a single copier. The Copier Vendor Decision Maker can let any deal slip by on cpc revenue to simply place another copier or hold onto a current account to get a bonus or hit some target.

Invoicing Colour cpc at a single click for 11 x 17" with high % toner fill will certainly kill any profitability in the account. Plus the customer will still demand and expect fast, high quality on site service with no concern for the very low price they are paying. High quality service support is not free for the dealer to provide and should not be free for the customer to receive.