WARNING. Important information for anyone buying a new device from a Xerox Concession

I have been looking to replace our 250 so contacted a xerox concessionaire. When I was reading the pagepack contract there was a clause in there that alarmed me. We were going to comit to 8,000 prints per month @ 5.4p color to keep our cost down, BUT, the contract was going to be signed for 5 years. When i questioned the sales rep he back tracked. IF this was the case, when we tried to change the machine to another manufacturer after 3 years we had to pay for 8,000 prints at 5.4p for the rest of the contract. that would mean we would have to pay the dealer over 10 grand to walk away. PLUS they wouldnt say how much the contract was going to go up by every year. could be 10% or more.

Surly this cannot be legal?

You have been warned.

We are going to Konica.

 

thanks for the heads up. luckily im already with konica, but your right, people really do need to do homework, for me i think it was the image quality and realness of the print that swayed it for me instead of the over the top gloss you get with a xerox

 

Well I'm not a fan of Konica, Sharp, CLC1000 and thats no matter the cost savings per click or printer cost.
If your looking to save money, floor space, A/C cost go with the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press.

Xerox trys to lock in customers to 5y deals so thy can up sell them later. Also watch out for the free supplies... Tell them you are only running 100% coverage and see how fast thy back track. Never forget the number 1 rule in printing nothing is free and if it sounds to good to be true it is. Xerox can make a deal for any click, sale, or lease price but I promise thy will make up any loss somewhere somehow.

Take for example the new 800 press.
Recommended average monthly volume
Color 800 Press @: 50K, 100K, 350K images per month
@ $5000 a month lease/base with .05 per color click and .02 for black only with 1-5 service coverage.
Heres how the deal break down.
Xerox knows you cant run the press WFO. If you factor the lease/base in to the click as a fixed click cost.
50,000 = .15 if all color or black only .12 (How's hard is pill to swallow and you thought it was just .05 cents)
100,000 = .10 if all color or black only .07
350,000 = .0643 if all color or black only .0343

If your thinking you will beat them at their own game.
Let's say you buy it new for 800/1000 or iGen3/4 $400k-$700 base configuration. With a print life of 5ys thats $1500-$2500 a month. Guess what thy still charge a base around $1500 and you can bet that the click goes up a lot or no free supplies. I've heard of xerox not servicing the new printers after thy hit 5 years old... That leaves you doing self service and speaking of that get use to it as xerox requires you to do most of the work on their new color boxes. Self service or ISO is the way to go on all boxes xerox or not if you can get them cheap. Keep in mind xerox charges a diagnostics fee for those looking at the self-service option.

If your looking for high volume 200,000 - 3,000,000 pages per month go with the iGen 3 or 4. Xerox will cut a deal if you play hard ball with them. This press is designed to run high volume month after month, I know of one thats still running with will over 200 million.
A draw back to the 800/1000 is it wont print 14in wide, so to print 8.5x14 it feeds short side first this cuts the print speed in more than half. Friction feeding pulls preprint off. It's a new box which means new problems that techs haven't seen. I know of one that has been down for 3 days right now. To be fair when the iGen3 came out I remember one being down for 2 weeks.

All printers have their strength and weaknesses it's more up to the users needs.

Before you sign any contract get a hold of a 20x loop, and look the contract over for the fine print. Remember your in business to make money and so are they.

Igentech@yahoo.com

 

I agree that you have to read any contract very carefully and unfortunately, 'pick your poison' that is most likely going to be profitable for you based on the terms of the contract and others' experience with the company and techs in your area. Unfortunately, every contract I've signed for a digital printer/copier has contained at least one out for the manufacture/service provider that can leave the customer holding the bag if something goes wrong. But overall in my midsize volume going with the click contracts and leases has been easier and slightly more profitable than when I tried to go it alone.

 

@ ALLPRINT: You find a questionable phrase in your contract and therefore buy a Konica, much poorer in quality compared to a 700?

I'd say, that's your problem.

It's mainly a question of your sales structure. The concessionaires work on contracts mainly designed to fit for office business. They close maintainance contracts with the customers by themselves and have the Xerox organisation as a back office.

If you talk to Xerox directly or to a MAPP (Major Account Premier Partner) you'll find totally different structures. In this case the service contract is closed directly between you and Xerox, the Partner only being an agent.

Both constructions have their advantages and drawbacks. Find out which one's best for you.

 

We are a small commercial printing company in St.John's Nl. (eastern Canada) Whats your opinion on this senario, we are installing a QM DI classic to beat the high cost of click charges on the Konica and Cannon, volume is increasing for digital work, click charges are killing us and turn around time too slow.
Pros and cons, plz let me know..

 

You may have beaten the click charges but still you are running an offset press. "Real" digital printing means variable data, individualized and personalized printing, all things the QMDI is not capable of. I understand that short runlength is your point for "digital work" but that is only one part of it. Maybe it's not the click charges killing you but the business model and the lack of innovation.

 

Advantages and disadvantages to every machine.

Here, our click charges are currently 12% LESS than they were 5 years ago, but our cost of paper, especially higher quality stocks, has gone up by 20%.

How much do you budget for repairs and maintenance on the QMDI?

 

PeterB, A questionable phrase in the contract that was going to cost us £10,000. That's not business, that's giving someone the ability to hold a gun to our head to make us stay with them. It's criminal NOT to display this on the front of the contract and if that's what the concessionaires are having to do to keep their customers, then it's goodnight to them.. It's like the 1980's repeating itself..

If you find that a small price to pay for the extra "Quality" you get from a Xerox then think again.. The 2 700's we saw struggled with solids and halftones, our Konica so far has been excellent and has performed well in it's enviroment, so is the extra really worth it? Not at all..

Would recommend to anyone to shop around and read the small print, go for the machine that fits the role, and DO NOT BELEIVE the salesman.. 99.9 percent of the know jack about the device's ability to perform in a print enviroment, let along the chalenges facing our industry at present.

 

@AllPrint: It's a definitely much too high price to pay, you're right. But it is not in small print, it is basic. What else than the monthly rate, included volume and the runtime of the contract is important? All that is one page one, highlighted and printed bold.

What I wanted to tell you is that it's not a question of the make but of the sales structure. Over here we also have socalled concessionaires making their own rules and conditions. Some of these dummies try to tie you up like that. Just stay away from them. Ask for your local MAPP, he'll speak your language and offer you contracts on a basis that is supported by xerox themselves.

As far as quality is concerned: I spent a whole day in the konica/minolta lab running testprints against a 250 (not even a 700) involving a whole bunch of color-experts and there was not a single print reaching our expectation. No special test forms at all, just picked a couple of current daily print jobs from our shop. That was 2 years ago, maybe they could improve since then, but they would have had extremely.

 

Actually your worried about trading in before your contract ends is the least of your potential problems. The satisfaction guarantee is even worse, you can end up with higher payments because 'the machine is not meant for your usage - and you should upgrade of course at a higher monthly cost. And to add insult to injury when your contract/lease ends you will still have to pay for service - I've heard the newer machines require the software license to be updated, after you own the machine you will still need a contract to use it.

 

I read your other thread regarding your 800 - sorry to hear that went badly for you. Hope it all works out in the end.
Here I've been extremely happy with xerox over the past years. They were the first to even give us any written satisfaction guarantee though I haven't every had to test it. Our current xerox service contract is also negotiated to be fixed (at a slightly higher rate) and with no monthly minimum which I found a pain with previous contracts as the machines may get superseded by new ones in the future.

 

I have run both Fuji Xerox 6075 II with Firey RIP and a Konica Minolta Bizhub 6500 with a Creo....

Give me Konica Minolta any day...take into consideration the down time on such a shoddy bit of hardware, the waste of stocks from mis-feeds and colour mis-matching, can't even do variable data...the people on the support line haven't even HEARD of variable data...
what kind of professional printing company doesn't know about variable data...

I'm pretty peeved at Fuji Xerox right about now.

 

What kind of variable data jobs are you trying and failing to get to run on the x?
I never actually thought of asking for support from my machine vendor for variable data (somehow I always thought of them as supporting the physical machine... I guess when I started they were really copiers and the technical stuff was magic ) but we do basic merges all the time using freeform without issue... when there is a lot of raster data I sometimes wished I had the beefier $$$$$ external rip so it could rip closer to machine speed, but for the price, I let my fastest bustled rip RIP while I run any other easier jobs on my slower units.