What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

So I'm lookin' in my Locatormagazine at some ads for Collins, Carolina Wholesale, etc., and as you may or may not know you can get up to about 40ppm machines in the panasonic, samsung, copystar, toshiba, ricoh, canon, sharp lines...

I was sort of thinking of just going with Copystar or maybe doing both Copystar and Sharp.

I also thought about maybe trying to become a Panasonic dealer just to offer some cheap low end stuff but think maybe they're a bit too cheap...

What would you guys do?

[mojorolla]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

We were a Panasonic dealer until they went out. We have been Sharp for almost 3 years. Sharp is a much better machine and has superior technology in my opinion.
The strongest part of the recent Panasonic line was the C3 color machines. They are good runners and can easily last well beyond their PM intervals. Runs good and little maintenance. The 80xx series were very problematic but can run well if tweaked properly. The fuser design is horrible, duplex issues, and no real web interface makes this machine a dog. Even more so for it predecessor, the 35xx,45xx, and 60xx. The 2330, 3030 does well for a volume of less then 5k a month. That being said, this machine also has fuser and duplex issues. The MB350 and MC210 are tabletop junk that is made for the home, not the office.

We were looking to fill holes in Sharps product line regarding printers, Sharp has very few, 2 I think. I was talking to a Copystar rep the other day and he was telling me of a ceramic drum that is guaranteed to last 600k. He also sheepishly admitted that most folks in the industry view Copystar as the "red headed step child" but with that kind of guarantee, it was worth looking into.

[blackcat4866]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

I'd lean towards Copystar & Sharp or maybe Konica Minolta, just choose your models carefully. =^..^=

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

hmm...was doing mostly konica minolta (nec) but word is they're working on going with Sharp but I'm not sure what will happen so I want my ducks in a row.

Does anybody know what the requirements are and minimums to be a full line direct dealer for Copystar rather than just get their lower end through a distributor?

[JR2ALTA]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

hmm...was doing mostly konica minolta (nec) but word is they're working on going with Sharp but I'm not sure what will happen so I want my ducks in a row.

Does anybody know what the requirements are and minimums to be a full line direct dealer for Copystar rather than just get their lower end through a distributor?

Have you had luck with NEC? I think they are very flaky. Not having SMB scanning is appalling, installing software to scan to PC is amateur hour. We are also replacing boards a lot, and like all Konica's spending 40 minutes replacing feed tires isn't exactly "efficient".

Working with distributor is actually the best way. Just make sure you get a kmaconnect.com for manuals and firmware. That way you can order any color/high volume refurb you want, while maintaining a distributor account for parts and new mid volumes, printers.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

Things I like with NEC:

no quotas, access and training on much of the konica minolta line and two of the best kyoceras in my opinion. That's about it.

Things I don't like:

for a while there everybody and their brother was rebranding konica minoltas, there was no referral support from the manufacturer. Actually the copiers link was buried deep inside one of the trillion pages of NEC and none of the document solutions dealers as we're called are put in the website database.

hardly saw our district sales rep and a lot of turnover within.

NEC direct leasing rates were a bit high and you're left to your own devices to arrange shipping. NEC could have probably taken care of freight and gotten everybody discounted rates instead of leaving everybody to their own shipping.

Sometimes if you need tech support the person isn't there and it seems like there's one person.

In general way too complicated. There's about 3-4 sites with different logins depending on what you're doing and the worst part was it took months before on my own accord I found out through the rep that there actually were 3-4 different websites by asking for one thing or another.

There's not much of a network or networking although I belong to the nec dealer linkedin group.

And I don't think there's any competitive bid process that I know of if I need discounts from nec to make a deal.

And of course no real high volume or production stuff available. So you always feel like a crippled bitch without getting all the good stuff from the oem. Would have been nice to have kyocera desktop printers, or konica minolta 1050/1200/c5501/c6501.

I'm betting if they go with sharp that we won't get access to the hercules series mx-m850/950/1100.

Oh and printed brochures were expensive as hell...

...but I called EVERY other manufacturer, even little ones like muratec and kip and nobody else was offering any dealership opportunities...some even recommended (this was years ago) that I call up an existing dealership and offer to sell for them...thanks but no thank you. My area is way oversaturated. Plus I didn't want to be an agent for somebody like xerox or oce.

Actually I did talk to Canon years ago and I got the impression that they were trying to phase out the independent dealers on the office volume...however, they seemed ok or had some interest in allowing me to sell and service the true production line...however I think they wanted 3-5 dedicated production techs which I didn't have, plus going through the training of course, and they were looking at an investment of $5 million...which I didn't have of course...


I take it you do NEC???

Have you had luck with NEC? I think they are very flaky. Not having SMB scanning is appalling, installing software to scan to PC is amateur hour. We are also replacing boards a lot, and like all Konica's spending 40 minutes replacing feed tires isn't exactly "efficient".

Working with distributor is actually the best way. Just make sure you get a kmaconnect.com for manuals and firmware. That way you can order any color/high volume refurb you want, while maintaining a distributor account for parts and new mid volumes, printers.

[allpoints]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

Panasonic quit manufacturing copy machines last year. copystar which is a bastard child of kyocera is good on segment 1 and 2 machines as far as cpc. Sharp is ok but thier line is inconsisent from year to year . There are alot of dealers kicking kyocera to the curb lately for a various reasons. Konica minolta is coming on strong they are giving Ricoh a run for thier money as far as color. Call me partial but in the 20 plus years I have been in the industry Ricoh and Canon have the most consistent lines in the industry as far as all segments, of course they from time to time have each had thier own gremlins. But over all, these are by far the most reliable lines in the industry. Has been my experience over the years that Ricoh is more durable and stable out of the 2. Just my opinion.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

Hmm...interesting. I wouldn't have thought Ricoh to be a favored brand...

What are some of the reasons Kyocera is being kicked to the curb?

[allpoints]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

Hmm...interesting. I wouldn't have thought Ricoh to be a favored brand...

What are some of the reasons Kyocera is being kicked to the curb?

Kyocera got its foot hold back in the market when the merge with mita happened about 5 years ago. They did this by offering factory back warranties regarding fusers, dev units, and other components up to 500k as well as the pricing structure to dealers. A lot of dealers jump on board especially on segment 1 and 2 lines. Nobody could touch thier price on the desktop lines. However, dealers learned quickly that follow up support regarding options for the machine fell short. Meaning, that if you ordered a machine without fax and then wanted to add it that option at a later date say 6 months later it was not available. This and some other issuses have lead to *some* dealers leaving kyocera. As far as Ricoh being a favored brand like I have previously mentioned over the time I have been in this industry I have dealt with all brands. And Ricoh is one of the most consistant out of all as far as dependability and reliability. Hope this is helpful.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

Good information. I briefly remember the merger years ago. All that I had thought was bad with kyocera was the color but good to hear the other input.

[cccjjn]

Re: What brands would you sell and service when buying from a distributor?

I am a dual line dealer with Ricoh and Kyocera (Copystar)

Our kyocera machines gather dust in the warehouse because Ricoh's machines are 1000% more user friendly for the end user and the tech setting it up on the network. Now Ricoh has completely revamped its a4 machines and our reps no longer have a reason to push the Kyocera. The Ricohs are that much better.

Here is a test for you on a Copystar or Kyocera. On an a a4 machine: Set up a copy job to duplex 10 copies of a legal size document. Press start. After a couple copies try to stop the copy job. Now count the number of button presses it took you to do that if you were even able to accomplish the task at all.

We are actively looking to drop Kyocera as our second line. We are taking a close look at both Sharp and Konica Minolta. If I get my way we will go with Sharp.

Take it for what it's worth.