{"id":10579,"date":"2014-12-03T08:59:23","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T13:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=10579"},"modified":"2014-12-03T08:59:23","modified_gmt":"2014-12-03T13:59:23","slug":"color-cost-per-page-for-2-cents-are-you-crazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/the-week-in-imaging-twii\/sales-and-service\/2014\/12\/color-cost-per-page-for-2-cents-are-you-crazy\/","title":{"rendered":"Color Cost Per Page for 2 Cents; Are You Crazy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pennies2\"<\/a>Many years ago while I was on my way to sales call, I would travel south on Broad Street in Red Bank, New Jersey.\u00a0 Located on the northbound side was a copy center, and every day when I passed that shop, I eyed a purple neon sign that touted “Copies for 3 cents per page”.\u00a0 Geesh, I thought, how the heck can that shop make money at 3 cents per page?<\/p>\n

Back then, I was a novice in the copier industry and fully didn’t understand the total cost per page.\u00a0 You know when you factor in the lease cost of the copier (if any) and then the cost of service and supplies? This particular shop was smoking with volume and I remember that volume to be somewhere between 200-300K per month.\u00a0 If we take 300,000 and multiply by .03 cents, the shop was generating $9,000 per month just selling copies.\u00a0 How much money did they make? Honestly, I have no clue, but I do know that this shop was in business for many years.<\/p>\n

Recently, I did a review for a company that had a late model color system from another vendor. They did not have a contract for maintenance and supplies.\u00a0Thus, anything and everything needed for the copier was time and materials.<\/p>\n

I offered to do a cost analysis for that prospect, thinking that the maintenance\/supply agreement would produce\u00a0value.\u00a0The prospect agreed and gave me all of the bills for maintenance, parts and supplies for the last three and a half years.\u00a0The prospect averaged just about, 4,100 pages per month in color and 2,500 per month in black.\u00a0The total of the invoices amounted to $5,800 or so. The monthly cost was about $141 per month.\u00a0 When I matched the prospect\u2019s volume to the maintenance\/supply agreement pricing I was stunned. The cost for all inclusive maintenance and supplies would cost them $143 more per month than what they were already spending!<\/p>\n

All of this got me thinking, that maybe the time maybe right to charge the same cost per page for black and color pages.\u00a0 I would tend to think that this model could be popular and have many selling and accounting advantages.\u00a0 I’m thinking along the lines of\u00a03 cents for color and for black. This would eliminate the complicated billing process of charging different prices for color and black. In addition, the invoicing to the end user would be simplified with one meter read and one cost per page charge.<\/p>\n

Now, some may say, no one will pay 3 cents per page, and I would say, well who the heck wants to pay 7 or 8 cents a page for color? The additional profit on the black would offset the lower cost in color.\u00a0Could this be a model for every customer?\u00a0 I doubt it, however, could it be a plan that could be offered for many customers?\u00a0 I think so.<\/p>\n

We need to perpetuate the cost per page model, we want customers to use our systems to make prints, copies and fax.\u00a0\u00a0Would it be obscene to think\u00a0we might see an increase in the amount of color and black pages if the model is adopted?\u00a0 Could we even adopt a model for two cents per page?<\/p>\n

Plenty of things to think about.<\/p>\n

Good selling!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago while I was on my way to sales call, I would travel south on Broad Street in Red Bank, New Jersey.\u00a0 Located on the northbound side was a copy center, and every day when I passed that shop, I eyed a purple neon sign that touted “Copies for 3 cents per page”.\u00a0 Geesh, I thought, how the heck can that shop make money at 3 cents per page? Back then, I was a novice in the copier industry and fully didn’t understand the total cost per page.\u00a0 You know when you factor in the lease cost of the copier (if any) and then the cost of service and supplies? This particular shop was smoking with volume and I remember that volume to be somewhere between 200-300K per month.\u00a0 If we take 300,000 and multiply by .03 cents, the shop was generating $9,000 per month just selling copies.\u00a0 How much money did they make? Honestly, I have no clue, but I do know that this shop was in business for many years. Recently, I did a review for a company that had a late model color system from another vendor. They did not have a contract for maintenance and supplies.\u00a0Thus, anything and everything needed for the copier was time and materials. I offered to do a cost analysis for that prospect, thinking that the maintenance\/supply agreement would produce\u00a0value.\u00a0The prospect agreed and gave me all of the bills for maintenance, parts and supplies for the last three and a half years.\u00a0The prospect averaged just about, 4,100 pages per month in color and 2,500 per month in black.\u00a0The total of the invoices amounted to $5,800 or so. The monthly cost was about $141 per month.\u00a0 When I matched the prospect\u2019s volume to the maintenance\/supply agreement pricing I was stunned. The cost for all inclusive maintenance and supplies would cost them $143 more per month than what they were already spending! All of this got me thinking, that maybe the time maybe right to charge the same cost per page for black and color pages.\u00a0 I would tend to think that this model could be popular and have many selling and accounting advantages.\u00a0 I’m thinking along the lines of\u00a03 cents for color and for black. This would eliminate the complicated billing process of charging different prices for color and black. In addition, the invoicing to the end user would be simplified with one meter read and one cost per page charge. Now, some may say, no one will pay 3 cents per page, and I would say, well who the heck wants to pay 7 or 8 cents a page for color? The additional profit on the black would offset the lower cost in color.\u00a0Could this be a model for every customer?\u00a0 I doubt it, however, could it be a plan that could be offered for many customers?\u00a0 I think so. We need to perpetuate the cost per page model, we want customers to use our systems to make prints, copies and fax.\u00a0\u00a0Would it be obscene to think\u00a0we might see an increase in the amount of color and black pages if the model is adopted?\u00a0 Could we even adopt a model for two cents per page? Plenty of things to think about. Good selling!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[87,1638],"tags":[106,1418,151,1506],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10579"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10588,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10579\/revisions\/10588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}