Why is single clicking an 11×17 on a “copier” legal?

We deal daily with some truly horrid regulations that started with someone saying "There oughta be a law...".

This has the potential to be one more.

I'd love it if everyone double clicked on 11 x 17.

Right now there are reps in my area trying to make dealers look like thieves for double clicking for 11 x 17. Its all in the spin.

Assume your most of our customer's do not sell output or produce predominately saddle-stiched output, what is your estimated %-age of reduced revenue? Unless there's a valid reason to set to single-click, don't. If there's an objection use the leased car analogy above (in 33 years that's the first time I've heard that take on the subject) and state you'll check with the leasing company for their "permission" since its their property and they would be liable for the "deceit".

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state you'll check with the leasing company for their "permission" since its their property and they would be liable for the "deceit".

The new machine from any of several competitors will be in place by the time you get back with that permission.

Words mean things. Don't attempt to call something "deceit" when it is simply setting a manufacturer provided configuration option.

It's a market situation, if the prevailing market (local market or vertical market) dictates single click 11x17, you participate or exit that market.

Actually, the real misleading practice is when the machine is set to double-click 11x17.

It is one piece of paper, one printed page, one click.

Like having a car odometer that registered two miles when you drove the car one mile uphill, or registered two miles when you drove one mile at high speed.

The industry simply developed its own conventions with the single/double click convenient for both the end-user and the dealer. Rather than a click rate for each paper size (similar to two per-minute charges for local and long-distance calls in the old days), the norm became double-click 11x17. But that norm is arbitrary, and print for pays use their buying leverage to negotiate single-click 11x17 on some contracts.

I have a friend who frequently reminds me of the one rule of business:

"Determine if you are in a position of strength or weakness, and react accordingly"

Do the same when evaluating a print for pay request for single-click 11x17.

I thought before the age of the "cost per page" agreements that all systems double clicked for 11x17. I had heard many years ago a that Canon was the first to introduce a system that single clicked for 11x17 and had also heard that the single click was not the intent and it was a mistake. Anyone else hear that?

Also with testing on some of my 11x17 laser printers, they all single click for 11x17.

A Konica Minolta Banner sheet is technically only one piece of paper. Are you saying that it should be single clicked also?

The only reason that this is an issue is the common practice of Print for Pay shops to run all or almost all of their letter jobs two up and then cut them in half. The end result is to produce 10,000 Letter sheets, that is what they will deliver to their customer. But the choose to do them two up on 5,000 11x17 sheet to cut thier cost in half. But the MFD gets the same wear and tear that it would have if they ran 10,000 letter sheets. If they did this on occasion it wouldn't be an issue, but this is the rule and not the exception. That is why i believe it is scamming the servicing dealer as well as the resale market. And it is why Printers hate that we are discussing this practice.

There has always been contention between sales and service on this issue. Sales people say we can't get the P4P deal unless we single click 11x17. When everyone maintained a reasonable click cost the dealers could take the single click 11x17 and still break even. But with the proliferation of the _BS dealers (CBS,RBS, KMBS, etc) all dropping their service cost in some cases BELOW what they tell the dealer they have to charge to make a profit we now have to challenge this practice. After all a good business deal has to be good for BOTH parties, not just one. When you have uber aggressive CPC pricing, then add single click 11x17, and then pile on the practice of doing all or most of their Letter jobs two up, a servicing dealer loses money. If a dealer can't make some profit on a customer why service the equipment? We are not a non profit organization. So you end up with addition by subtraction. If it cost me money to service someones equipment and I choose to no longer provide that service I gain by not loosing money on the deal.

We have a history of providing great service. Great service cost a little more. P4P want to pay for "chop meat" (look it up in the urban dictionary) but they want you to deliver a porterhouse steak. Why should the Printer be the only one allowed to make a profit?

Vince

I bailed on the P4P market long ago. I do not need the hassle, very low profitability and a highly demanding customer who runs their machines for far too long at high volumes. P4P are often the slowest to pay their bills.

P4P market is interesting at best, there are some good payers out there. You've got to find them, I've found that most of the average size print shops under 1 million is sales don't pay that well. But with the new Print Production systems we will be looking at a different type of customer in the P4P market, and to tell you the truth I'm not even sure that 11x17 single click would ever be one of thier main objections. I think we just see this is in the smaller accounts.

If you're going lease or lay down 80K on a piece of hardware, then I'm thinking saving .004-.0048 is not your main concern. Your main concern is to get excellent service and support to keep the system running.

We'll be making our first entrance to this market in coming weeks. I'll keep you posted on some of the objections that I see in the field when working with higher end Print Production accounts.

Art

From a service point of view, I was wondering if 11 x 17" as a single click will screw up your PM cycles for Maintenance and Support. I think but am not sure that the copier will internally count the copy clicks accurately but the meter only advances a single click for 11 x 17".

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"Determine if you are in a position of strength or weakness, and react accordingly"

Price at your acceptable margin. If your price is paid, take the business since it already has the acceptable margin. If customer will not pay your price, walk, secure in the knowledge that taking the deal would not provided your acceptable margin.

I think we are overcomplicating it. Deal XYZ on a P4P has $X of equipment margin, $Y of lease margin, and $Z of service margin at the agreed rate, regardless of whether we are billing single or double click. If $X+$Y+$Z is acceptable, move forward. Else, move on.

Define the worst possible customer...
* Difficult to get financed
* Slow to pay
* Overly demanding of the equipment
* Overly demanding of the servicing dealer
* Overly price conscious, to a fault
* Next to zero loyalty no matter how good a job you do.
* Can't be used as a reference within their vertical market because of the competitive nature of their industry.
* The only potential positive is the hardware and after market volume which probably is at a loss so volume is actually another negative.

As you can probably guess, I have sold very few P4P accounts over my 30+ years in the industry (except Riso's) but I am OK with that.

Old Glory, I wish we had a [LIKE] button for your comment!

"Like Button"

We could have one of these, however I would have to "unsecure" the forums. Which means no one would have to register and anyone not in the industry could read the threads. I asked for this with the "secure" forums, however at this time the eve format will not support a "like" button.

I would like to have this also, but still think we need to keep the forums secure for everyone.

Art

I have encountered accounts where the vendor set the machine to properly double click 11x17 however the sales rep go the deal with the print shop promising single click and changed the settings after the machine was delivered. Not a good deal for the vendor as it was a print ship with a knife to print two up and then cut the 11x17's to letter size.

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Originally posted by SpartaGuy:
I have encountered accounts where the vendor set the machine to properly double click 11x17 however the sales rep go the deal with the print shop promising single click and changed the settings after the machine was delivered. Not a good deal for the vendor as it was a print ship with a knife to print two up and then cut the 11x17's to letter size.

I've also heard of this, funny thing is dealer or direct branch that they bought the machine from never knew about it either, and yes they had the special clause "if we find you using more than your estimated coverage". After six years the system is still in the field w/single click 11x17, they are running 80% 11x17. They've never been told they were using too much toner.

Art