Fancy features have migrated down; you can now get a powerful machine that's well within your budget.
Mike Halley recalls the day last spring when his office's copy machine died. "We felt lost. It shut us down for a couple of hours until we decided what we were going to do," says Halley, operations manager at Transportation Monitors Inc., a small Memphis trucking company. After some frantic phone calls, Halley prevailed upon a nearby shipping company to let him use its copier for essential work.
The failure was more than just an inconvenience; it threatened the small business's cash flow. "When a bill of lading comes in, we need to send it out that day so we get our money quickly," Halley explains. "But we have to keep a copy. We're hurting if we don't have a copier."
Halley's experience is not an isolated one. Industry analysts say small-business owners tend to put off the decision to buy a new copier until equipment breaks down. And then exasperation overrules reason, and owners often make the wrong purchase.
This is particularly true because copier salespeople, who work on commission, tend to oversell features, says Richard E. Hanson, publisher of "Hanson's Guidelines," a newsletter that evaluates copier performance. To get the correct machine, Hanson says, "You have to do a lot of homework."
To be sure, the thought of boning up on the hundreds of copier models, priced from under $1,000 to more than $150,000, is probably enough to drive you to the nearest open window. But with a good understanding of your company's needs and the explanation of basic copier types and their features given here, you can make an informed decision.
If further encouragement is needed, you should know it's a buyer's market, says Frank G. Cannata, publisher of "The Cannata Report," which tracks the copier industry. Sales are flat, and the 20 or so manufacturers out there are competing vigorously. That means a small business can negotiate a 10% to 15% discount, try a demonstration model for a few days, negotiate an extensive service agreement, and even obtain dealer financing if desired.
Evaluating your needs
Whether you need a new copier or are purchasing one for the first time, start by determining tasks. Will all your copies be made on 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper, or will you sometimes require legal (8 1/2-by-14) or ledger (11-by-17) size? Will most copies be made from single-page or multipage documents? Will you need double-sided copies?
The most important question, however, is: How many copies will your company make each month? If you have a copier now, check its counter or service records to figure out your volume. If not, get estimates from all your employees and tally the results. Once you've got a number, then add to it to allow for growth, so the machine you choose will be adequate down the road. A good rule of thumb, some analysts say, is that a company's copy volume increases at about twice the rate of revenue growth.
Be sure to allow for another factor too: "When you get a new machine, the volume goes up 25% to 30% immediately," just because it is new, says Terry Wirth, manager of product evaluation at Buyer's Laboratory Inc., an office product testing firm in Hackensack, N.J.
Settling on a final figure for volume is critical, because it tells you the general type of copier you will need and approximately how much you'll have to spend. Market research firms like Dataquest, in San Jose, Calif., break the copier market into a number of segments. The first three, described below, account for nearly 80% of all machines sold and encompass the needs of the vast majority of small businesses.
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Personal copiers These most basic of machines sell for $500 to $1,000. All are tabletop models, recommended for making up to 500 copies a month. (Heavier use will degrade quality and increase the risk of breakdowns.) Better machines, which average $1,200, make up to 1,000 copies a month. All offer only limited features, such as the ability to lighten and darken copies; some may allow you to insert legal-size paper. These machines are fairly slow, typically making only about 6 to 8 copies a minute.
Low-range A copier in this segment costs $1,500 to $4,000. Average monthly volume is around 2,000 copies, although some can handle up to 10,000. These machines are quite a bit faster, averaging 12 to 15 copies a minute, and offer many popular features.
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Mid-range A typical machine in this category costs about $5,000 and will likely be freestanding rather than tabletop. Average monthly volume is about 7,000 copies, though many are rated at up to 25,000. These machines make up to 30 copies a minute and offer paper trays in all three sizes. At this level, most features a small business would want should be standard, but special additions can drive the price up to $7,500.
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Features
Now that you have an idea of the category your company falls into, it's time to make a list of features you need and those you might like. You can use the list to compare machines and keep track of how much cost you're adding as the salesperson piles on features.
Many advanced features are of value only to a small percentage of users. For a company such as an ad agency, color copies might be a real help, but few others should spend the extra five grand. The majority of small, growing companies need to evaluate only a handful of features, explained here.
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Speed This is a measure of the number of 8 1/2-by-11-inch copies a machine can deliver in one minute. If your employees will use a machine often, a faster speed will reduce the time they spend standing around. Realize, though, that if you will be making frequent use of such features as double-sided copies or collating, speed will be lower, and some machines that make quick single copies are slow in other modes.
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