Scanning click Charge

[blackcat4866]

Service.

Admittedly, I like stoking the fire a bit.

But seriously, I see scan charges as a "gotcha" charge.

Because the argument doesn't make sense, for example, imagine if someone only wanted to scan yet bought an $8,000 machine from you. You'd laugh all the way to the bank.

So why all the outrage?

How cheap are operation panels? We have a machine doing 4x the scan volume as print, that has used three touch screens due to the extra pressing of touch panel buttons. I don't see it as a "gotcha" at all. In fact it barely covers the additional costs. =^..^=

[KenB]

I was comparing contribution (your term, I'm not familiar) with the cost of a few doc feed pulleys.

The point is McDonalds can start charging you for ketchup packets, but it might bite them in the ass down the line.

That being said, I don't push digital RX faxing or anything that's just dumb for us money-wise.
Free scanning is just something we have to live.

It's unfortunate, bit with the so-called economy being what it is, we are forced to sell equipment at or even below our cost, just to get the business.That is why a seemingly minor speed bump can cause a lot of grief.

BTW..."Contribution" is the difference between what a product costs a dealer outright ( In our industry, that would be "dealer cost"), and what it actually sells for.

"Profit", on the other hand, is what's left of the contribution after all expenses are met (rent, payroll, etc..).

I took a few business courses some years back. I don't remember much, but some things actually did stick.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Very interesting thread. The problem is copiers today do soo much, perhaps too much.

My thoughts, charge for scanning in appropriate instances or don't include the doc. feeder in the service agreement. The billing should be easy to understand and logical. Obviously if the print/copy count surpasses the scan count then they probably shouldn't be paying for any scans.

Here's the thing though. A copier that is a network scanner for $8,000 could be a steal considering that independent scanners at full color and 600dpi can cost tens of thousands. Just look up some pricing on Fujitsu, Kodak, and Bowell and Howe. If you buy one of those machines, you either pay for a service call or by scan. A network scanner on a copier, clearly is a more modern option and their has to reasonably be a cost for the scanning, therefore dealers need to adjust and either charge for it or treat that portion of it as an independent scanner and service is extra. If the customer doesn't like it then they can buy a $10,000 independent scanner and software which can run another $5,000-$20,000 to go with it.

We just need to stick our guns. Staples is a supply item that we've stuck our guns too. We make the customer buy staples. They aren't a courtesy supply item just because they're stapling on our copy click charges. At a minimum make them pay for doc belts and rollers.

While I'm on my rant I'll just come out and say it. There never should have been a click charge concept. As dealers we collectively are the biggest morons and suckers ever! I don't know how it all started but how on earth did that concept ever come about?

Think about it, a manufacturer makes a $100,000 machine but will only warranty it for say 90 days or so many prints...weak, very weak. Now somehow we've assumed the role that we will be the insurance agency on a $100,000 (or whatever the value of the machine) for just a half penny or penny per b/w print. So we pay the manufacturer for their parts to warranty their machines (which are being made cheaper and cheaper) and all for a low click charge which arguably is a money loser on high ink coverage.

I think a better model would be to sell toners and parts to the customer at a markup and charge for service calls or do what IBM somehow gets away with. They sell the machine, charge a few grand per year for service AND charge a click rate.

Just my two cents.

[KenB]

For whatever it may be worth, most MFPs (perhaps Segment 3 and above), are superior in scan quality to dedicated scanners in the $5k to $10k range.

As a f'rinstace, at one time we were selling Canon iR110s like hotcakes. ( I REALLY miss those days!) At first we were selling a Fujitsu scanner with it, at a cost of about $7,000 just for the scanner.

We quickly found out that even a used imageRUNNER, like an iR5000 or above, cost less, but more importantly, halftones were markedly better. (We normally scanned into Acrobat.)

We even placed a few iR110s with used iR8500s as the scanner. It was a very good fit.

As I recall, we charged nest to nothiong for maintenace on the smaller imageRUNNER, because we were more than making it up on the iR110. (Keep in mind that the iR110/125 /150 series started at about $200k, and went up from there.)

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

You're absolutely correct. For whatever reason the stand alone scanners mostly top out at 400dpi. From what I hear from customers that do use them, they mostly archive documents at 300dpi, I guess it's faster and good enough for archive purposes.

Copier with scan is definately the value and better option in my opinion especially since you get higher res. usually color, and faster speeds with duplex scanning. Only advantage I can think of with the scanners is some do like a few hundred scans per minute at lower resolution.

On a side note, I would have loved to been trained on the IR110/125/150 series, but unfortunately I wasn't. Any major changes with the new models 1110 I think it is?

For whatever it may be worth, most MFPs (perhaps Segment 3 and above), are superior in scan quality to dedicated scanners in the $5k to $10k range.

As a f'rinstace, at one time we were selling Canon iR110s like hotcakes. ( I REALLY miss those days!) At first we were selling a Fujitsu scanner with it, at a cost of about $7,000 just for the scanner.

We quickly found out that even a used imageRUNNER, like an iR5000 or above, cost less, but more importantly, halftones were markedly better. (We normally scanned into Acrobat.)

We even placed a few iR110s with used iR8500s as the scanner. It was a very good fit.

As I recall, we charged nest to nothiong for maintenace on the smaller imageRUNNER, because we were more than making it up on the iR110. (Keep in mind that the iR110/125 /150 series started at about $200k, and went up from there.)

[KenB]

You're absolutely correct. For whatever reason the stand alone scanners mostly top out at 400dpi. From what I hear from customers that do use them, they mostly archive documents at 300dpi, I guess it's faster and good enough for archive purposes.

Copier with scan is definately the value and better option in my opinion especially since you get higher res. usually color, and faster speeds with duplex scanning. Only advantage I can think of with the scanners is some do like a few hundred scans per minute at lower resolution.

On a side note, I would have loved to been trained on the IR110/125/150 series, but unfortunately I wasn't. Any major changes with the new models 1110 I think it is?

Unfortunately, I know nothing about the 1110s.

We stopped selling Canon a few years ago (I work for IKON - 'nuff said), and the last Canon machines we placed were 7105 series models, which are very good as well.

We did take on a bunch of Heidelberg 9110s during the reign of the iR110s, as they were the very same machine. Equally as good.

I have an account that's a rather large print shop, and they have an iR110, 2 iR105s (with Fieries), and a Konica Minolta 1050 for their B&W printing.

About a year ago, they wanted us to test each device to see which had the best quality when printing the user manuals that they ran, of which they do a few hundred thousand of each month. A lot of them had some *very* old B&W photos in them; mostly pictures of welders. (They were looking to eliminate one machine by sending it to another office that would print almost exclusively text.)

While all of them looked good, and the differences were slight, the iR110 (may favorite of the group!) looked the best.

I guess this is somewhat off the topic of this tread, but in a way it's not. What you are going to do with the scans once you have them should determine just what the quality, file size, etc... should be of the scans you create. A huge exaggeration of the that would be using a $15k scanner to make PDFs that would eventually print on a $200 desktop printer. Overkill City.

On the other extreme, if your scans are going to be printed and published, you not only need a high end scanner, but some software "in the middle" to clean up the scans, something like Kofax VRS (Virtual Re Scan), or maybe the less expensive TMS Sequoia's ScanFix product.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

I think they're at least 98% the same machine (1110 and 110). The site says they use the same software suites and they look the same. Very little must have changed.

Good points about what one will do with the scans. I know some places that scan documents but still have to save the hard copies for several years anyway. At that point it's just for ease of retrieval on the server.

It's amazing though how much paper you have to go through to get to a "paperless" environment. Many years ago I worked for a state agency and EVERY piece of mail that came in would have to be scanned and indexed. If the paper was crinkled, folded, stapled, or double sided you had to make a fresh copy so that it would go through the scanners better. The original and the fresh copy would then be destroyed. So in our case going paperless actually hurt the environment. Oh plus you had to make copies of all envelopes so they could be scanned and if different things were included in one envelope you would have to make several copies of the cover letters and make cover sheets for each scan.

So scanning can be a huge full time operation and have its own problems. Even with a click charge, some organizations would just kill the doc feeder on a copy device if they started utilyzing them as the scanners.

[zico21]

Our standard practice is to have a minimum $30 monthly charge on our Cost per Page agreements. If the usage times the click charge is less than $30 then the invoice is $30. For the few high scan count, low print count machines we have, the $$360 (12x$30) we get during a year is enough to maintain profitability.

[ddude]

We just need to stick our guns. Staples is a supply item that we've stuck our guns too. We make the customer buy staples. They aren't a courtesy supply item just because they're stapling on our copy click charges. At a minimum make them pay for doc belts and rollers.

Well put- it's time to start charging for service again, instead of giving away the shop. Just because XYZ gives away clicks at .0045 does not mean that I have to match them-My rate is .01, or .013, and I can get it, because my customer wants me to service them. If we continue to give away our profit, who will stand tall when the dust settles? only the ones with deep pockets and poor service-

[Lotec]

We charge about 6,5 us dollars a month which should cover scanning and firmware upgrades.
But I see we have customers that use scanning and paper saving options A LOT. They scan everything to mail, they get faxes converted to mail and the few pages they do print is usually printed with several pages on one page - or they use binding software and merge several document formats and files to one file..
As a result they went from about 4 million clicks (on large expensive machines) to only 2-300 000 clicks on a small B/W and a small color machine.
So the 6,5 dollars does not cover the loss in general I think. But it is hard to start charging for scanning because our competitors does not charge for the use of scanning at the moment.