Have You Thought About Cheaper Color Prints?

Are Fixed Color Costs a Less-Expensive and Green Idea for You?

Are Fixed Color Costs a Less-Expensive Idea for You?

It’s a little funny being in toner sales here in Denver sometimes. I get calls from people who are upset about toner prices from their retailers and are making the switch to us because we’re $5-$10 cheaper on a common toner cartridge. That makes sense: cost is important. However, what baffles me is the same customers who make the switch because of prices glaze over when I mention how much they could save by switching to a Xerox PagePack program.

“Well,” they reason “I’ve already paid off this $2,400 HP color printer, so I’m really not interested in switching to a Xerox plan.” While that logic does make sense at first, what doesn’t make sense is the math! If the same customer uses color toner at high coverage, they will probably end up spending between $6,000 and $10,000 more over three years than they would with a Xerox PagePack plan (which allows for unlimited coverage for a fixed price per month)…including the printer!

Here’s how the PagePack plan works: You pay a fixed price per color print no matter how much color you have on the page. This is extremely attractive to Realtors, who’s color house flyers are generally around 80% coverage (this is for the ones that look like they’re around 40% tops!). So, instead of paying an unknown amount of money for color toner in Denver, you’re paying a fixed $.06-$.11 cents a print (depending on the contract length and copier model). This makes monthly budgeting simple and effective. If you do a lot of color printing, give us a call for a detailed description of how a Xerox PagePack program can save you a lot of money on your toner in Denver.

Xerox Phaser Solid Ink Toner: Save Some Cash!

The solid ink models of the Xerox Phaser series can save you a ton on your toner costs! A lot of printer and printing consumable (toner etc.) companies don’t really like the solid ink technology. First, the margin on Xerox toner is very small, and second, it reduces printing costs so much that it blows the competition out of the water for high-coverage printing. Xerox toner became a whole new ball of wax (get it?) once it adopted the solid toner (or “wax toner”) technology from Tektronix in 1999. While it does have a few disadvantages (machines can’t be turned on and off or moved regularly as all melted wax is wasted), the solid ink technology is something we here at Pahoda Image Products highly recommend.

We don’t make much on the toner, and the machines are about average or a little below our profit price points. However, the green nature of the toner, and the savings on printing for our customers make it impossible not to recommend for almost all color printing needs. We advise it for churches, non-profits, and realtors most commonly. This is because all three groups are looking for low cost, high coverage, quality prints. The most efficient way to print with the Xerox Phaser (and Xerox toner), is through a cost per print program. I’ve mentioned it several times before, but it really is the best way to do color printing if you have consistent color print volumes and high-coverage prints. It will save you a bundle of money, and you can rest assured you’re printing with probably the most earth-friendly color printer on the market today. If you do a lot of color printing, give us a call for all your Xerox toner needs!

Coverage and Your Cash Pt. 2

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of understanding coverage and how it can save you money if you understand it! We have a Xerox program here that allows people to do a “cost per print” no matter how much coverage they put on the page. This is an excellent way for people who make fliers (Realtors, churches, schools, etc.) to dramatically cut costs. If you own the Xerox printer, it makes color prints for around 6.5 cents a page (with all the color you can fit on it!). By making coverage a non-issue, it allows you to let your art director make their pictures/photographs as large and full as they like.

However, I don’t recommend this program for companies, or small businesses that generally do small pictures or letterhead occasionally. If your coverage is less than 10%, and you print less than 1000 color prints per month, you’re probably better off just purchasing regular toner. Even if you do that little color printing, it is still worth looking at the Xerox Phaser series. The Xerox Phaser 6180 uses the solid ink technology, which dramatically reduces cost for even the most modest color needs.

When it comes to coverage, tally up how much your prints are actually costing you. Then see if what you’re paying per color print is to your liking. If it’s draining your cash, it may be time to start looking at the alternatives.

Coverage and Your Cash Pt. 1

I was talking with a buddy of mine in the industry a couple weeks ago, and he mentioned how few people understood coverage (and how it affects their printing costs). So, I decided to write a post about it! When you’re browsing toner costs, it is tempting to look at a toner cartridge and think 10,000 pages sounds like a lot for your HP 4700 Cyan toner cartridge. However, the 10,000 pages advertised are only counting for 5% cyan coverage per page.

The industry standard is 20% of the page covered by color. That means 5% black, 5% cyan, 5% magenta, and 5% yellow. So, if you’re doing a lot of similar prints that use deeper or more color, you are going to be getting much less mileage out of your toner. By figuring out your coverage, you’re able to make better estimates at how much your prints are really costing you. If you’re coverage is 50%, your 10,000 page HP 4700 cartridge is going to yield closer to 4,000 pages. This dramatically increases your cost per print! So, when making your printing decisions, make sure to look at how many pages you’re actually getting per cartridge. This is easily done by printing out a copy of how many color prints you did each month and looking at how frequently you are purchasing toner cartridges.

By knowing how much coverage you’re putting on your printing products, you’ll be able to make an educated decision when it comes time to purchase a new printer. The upfront cost may be more, but usually (there are some very notable exceptions) the larger printers will end up saving you a load of cash if you have regular high-coverage prints!

Xerox Phaser 8400 solid ink

The Xerox Phaser line is pretty impressive. It started in 1999 when Xerox bought Tektronix color-printing division, a Wilsonville, OR company. Tektronix had developed the solid ink technology back in the early ’90s, which basically eradicated the toner cartridge and replaced it with the minimalistic ink-block. It revolutionized the toner world, and has made the cost-per-print price drop dramatically over the years. The Phaser 8400 has been discontinued; I was just talking to a gentleman the other other day who traded a couple of his 8400s in for the Phaser 8860 (and received Xerox’s $500 per machine trade in!). However, if you have one that’s been more gently used than his, I’m sure it’s still pumping out the prints for a very good price!

In our Print Share Program (where we help Denver non-profits receive printer and toner donations from our corporate clients), the only machines we recommend for color are the Xerox Phasers due to the price-friendly nature of the solid ink technology. The green nature of the solid ink process makes it more attractive to our earth-conscious clients as well. Because there’s no bulky cartridge, it reduces the amount of plastic that needs to be made and eventually recycled. The best option if you’re doing a lot of printing (esp. high-coverage) and have consistent print volumes is Xerox’s cost per print program. Feel free to give us a call about details and getting a quote!

Toner Phoners: Watch Your Wallets!

I was talking to an IT director yesterday, and she gave me a good idea for a blog post: Toner Phoners. The scam has been around for a while, and the severity of what it can do to your wallet depends on how horrible of people you’re dealing with. Letting your office people (especially new hires) know about it is extremely important. The details may vary, but the basic formula is something like this:

Toner Phoner: “Hey, this is Bob over at _______ Office products, and we’re getting ready to ship out your order, I was wondering if you could read the model number of your office printer to me again. I just want to double check we have the right stuff in your order.”

New Office Person: “Oh, um, yep we’ve got a Xerox Phaser 8860 at our printing center.”

Toner Phoner: “OK, we’ll get that toner you ordered sent right over.”

The company will then be sent a bunch of sub-standard compatibles at exorbitant rates. If you are the victim, DO NOT use the products! They are normally incredibly cheap, and if one leaks in your printer, they are not under warranty, so you just got soaked for toner and a printer. If you are familiar with toner cartridges, you can usually tell how quality a cartridge is by its weight: cheap cartridges will be much lighter due to the lack of toner in them. If you are the victim of a toner phoner, look at the government’s site to help you know your rights: FTC.gov/boss

Like I’ve said before, if you are going to use compatibles, make sure they are under warranty, and don’t overbuy (as returning old toner can be a hassle). Buy from local companies with people you know and trust. Give us a call with your toner needs!

Buying Smart Saves You Money…

Toner Denver: Buying Smarter!

We can receive orders for toner frequently for small machines or extraordinarily infrequently for large machines. Something I find strange about this is that owners and CFOs don’t run spreadsheets at least once a year to assess printing use and possible solutions for expensive prints.

This is due in part to people overbuying and under-buying equipment. Just this week, I was working up a quote for a company with around 70 employees in three offices. They were content with their toner CPP (cost per print) for their color volume. However, they are leasing four machines that retail around 18K apiece (72K for a 36month lease…that’s $2000 a month without including prints)! We are recommending a Xerox Phaser 8860 which is less for toner (dry ink technology) and about less than half the lease price. If they needed 20K color pages per month, along with non-stop copying, they would be making a reasonable fiscal decision. However, by looking only at the toner price, they have drastically over-bought for their needs.

We are willing to sell more expensive toner because a customer is married to a machine that doesn’f fit their need. However, we tell them how they can improve their saving for their specific needs. If you have regular monthly outputs, I reccomend looking at our cost per print programs. It is probably the safest way not to over (or under) buy. Don’t hesitate to call if you have toner questions or would like a cost per print analysis.

Xerox Wax Printers — How to Waste a TON of Money…

If you have a Xerox Phaser 850, Phaser 860, Phaser 8200, Phaser 8400, Phaser 8500, Phaser 8550, Phaser 8560 or a Phaser 8860 printer, then this post is for you! If you own a standard color laser printer, this post is not for you. I wanted to go over a quirky part of the Xerox technology you need to understand about the Xerox machines if you happen to own one of them.

The Phaser series which are wax based printers (there are also laser based Phaser units), basically take a crayon, melt it, spray it, press it and send it out. When the printer is turned on, it melts enough wax to fill the resevior for each color. When the printer is turned off, it empties the resevoir into the waste tray. This means the printer was designed to STAY ON at all times. If you power it off, to be green, you will be wasting a lot of perfectly good supplies. The cost per print is already high enough that you don’t need to make it worse on yourself!

So, if you have one of these Phaser units, make sure you keep it on. If you have your ink box, the part number would match one of the following part numbers to have this post apply.

Xerox Phaser 850 — 016-1825-00; 016-1826-00; 016-1827-00; 016-1831-00

Xerox Phaser 860 — 013-0299-00; 436-4309-00; 436-4311-00; 046-4313-00

Xerox Phaser 8200 — 016-2040-00; 016-2041-00; 016-2042-00; 016-2043-00; 016-2044-00; 016-2045-00; 016-2046-00; 016-2047-00

Xerox Phaser 8400 — 108R00604; 108R00605; 108R00606; 108R00607; 108R00608

Xerox Phaser 8500/8550 — 108R00668; 108R00669; 108R00670; 108R00671; 108R00672; 108R00688;

Xerox Phaser 8560 — 108R00723; 108R00724; 108R00725; 108R00726; 108R00727

Xerox Phaser 8860 — 108R00746; 108R00747; 108R00748; 108R00749

Xerox Phaser C2424 — 108R00660; 108R00661; 108R00662; 108R00663; 108R00664

All of the machines above SHOULD NOT be powered off and on all the time! If you follow this tip, you will save TONS on your wax ink costs!

Xerox Printer Wax and Strange Ideas I have Heard…

There are some people who are a little odd… They will spend hours to save a few bucks. I heard this one yesterday and I had to chuckle a bit. A customer was looking to buy either a Xerox Phaser 8560 or a Xerox Phaser 8860 printer and they heard of a brilliant idea… The would take the trays that initial 8560′s came in and MELT the 8860 wax and then stick the block into ice water so that it would harden quickly. Wow… That’s interesting, but if they actually bought the right printer in the first place, they wouldn’t have to worry about doing these sorts of weird things. Would this work? I have no idea, to be perfectly blunt, but I would imagine it is bot the best thing in the world to do to save a few bucks.

Why would they be tempted to do this? Mainly because the 8560 costs about $.11 per print while the 8860 costs $.03 per print. Take this over several years and it adds up to a ton of money. Do we recommend this? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! We recommend purchasing the right printer in the first place!

Feel free to call us for Xerox Wax in Denver, as long as you don’t expect us to melt wax for one printer to put into the other!

Inconsistency From Printer Manufacturers

I have been getting some interesting feedback from our printer manufacturers. Basically it goes something like this…

“If you sell a compatible toner for our printers, you “may” lose your ability to sell our products”

Then, a month or so later, they will ask us to do the very thing they got done threatening us about. For example Xerox has this kind of policy, but guess what, Xerox makes a compatible for HP printers. They claim as a manufacturer of printers they can produce a cartridge which will meet or exceed OEM standards. This is actually true, I am sure… but they also say the reason we SHOULD NOT sell compatibles is because they make the printer, they are the only ones who can really know how the toner and drums are affected by temperature, pressure, and the overall mechanics. Strange how they are the only manufacturer who can both make OEM quality toner AND a printer no one else can make a toner for.

Let’s be real here, it’s all about $… There’s nothing wrong with this. I can actually appreciate this… just be blunt and say so. There’s no need to pretend the selling of compatibles for your products is bad, but selling compatibles for HP is good. I am sure Xerox does a splendid job with the cartridges. The point remains that as a customer, it seems a bit ironic how this argument flows from front to end.

What do we suggest? Basically I would say, buy OEM toners in general when it comes to color. (A few exceptions can be made)… color is legitimately a huge pain for reman companies to do well. For Black and White… most reputable companies can build a cartridge that can generally work well. (Of course there are just as many reputable companies as unreputable ones…)

Give us a call with your toner needs.