Issue #0739/1 - Rather than simply offering discounts on printers, manufacturers are increasingly employing cash rebates or free give-aways to encourage buyers and to increase their hardware sales. Here we take a look at some of the current offerings and the effect they have on the purchase price.
In the run-up to Christmas, pressure seems to be on printer manufacturers to maximise their printer sales – especially in the UK.
Just reviewing five sources in the UK, we easily came up with eight offers of real significance, whereas for the US, it was a struggle even to find one store with decent special offers and a review of Euro-zone outlets revealed nothing other than the usual discounts.
Of the offers found in the UK, four were on Hewlett-Packard hardware and one each on Canon, Epson, Lexmark and Samsung. Other offers were found but we’ve just picked the most significant to highlight here because this is not intended to be notification of special offers available but a review and analysis of market conditions.
In the US, the usual scenario is for rebates to be offered to customers buying hardware – most of which involve relatively small sums of money. However, the one store found in the US that carries significant offers includes a couple that are really significant, involving a massive rebate of 50% - and, it is a Canon-only special!
Canon’s MF3240 mono laser All-in-One, D340 Personal Digital Copier and D320 Personal Digital Copier are the models carrying the best offers at 50%. The normal sales price of the MF3240 is said to be $200 but with the $100 rebate, customers will be able to buy the device for $100, meaning that they are getting it at half price.
Similarly, the D340, normally priced at $300, is selling for $150 after a rebate of $150 and the D320 normally sells for $250 but can be bought for $125 after the $125 rebate. Following on from these models is a range of other Canon devices with effective discounts ranging from 33% to just 12.5%
It should specifically be noted that all of these devices are mono devices, mostly laser but including one mono inkjet fax machine. This is significant in that it demonstrates the gradual demise of, or at least the gradually reducing demand for, mono laser devices, even the multifunction ones.
There are no special offers in the US on colour laser printers or AiOs and few special offers on inkjet printers.
One is a high-level model for professional photographers – the PIXMA Pro9000 – normally priced at $500 but has a $100 rebate equalling a 25% discount.
At a consumer level though, the iP3500 is available with a 25% ($20) rebate on the regular price of $80 and a 20% ($50) rebate is effective on the $250 iP90v portable photo printer.
Epson has just introduced some offers on a couple of consumer/small business models, where discounts on normal store price range from just 20% to 40%.
Over in the UK we do find special offers on colour laser printers and they far exceed an effective discount of 50%.
But, let’s start with the most bizarre offer we’ve seen in a long while. Remember the offer of a free cordless drill with own brand toner cartridges (all ready to refill the cartridge!) – Issue #0635 "How’s this for a special toner offer?" Well, this offer must rival that one!
This time all we need do is buy five packs of Duracell batteries – yes, batteries – and we get an Epson D92 inkjet printer absolutely free!! Wow!
This means that for an expenditure of £32.45 (five packs of 12xAA at £6.49 each – being the most popular size), we not only receive our five packs of batteries but also the Epson D92, which the store in question sells at £29.99 and is listed by Epson at £34.03. As a major downside – to a customer’s confidence in buying from this store – the store quotes the list price as £49.99! This is blatantly untrue and should fall foul of the UK’s Office of Fair Trading.
Needless to say, this is a fantastic opportunity to obtain a free printer, always assuming that customers actually want five packs of batteries (= 60x AA)! Keeping the expenditure as low as possible (if you don’t really want all those batteries), it would be possible to take advantage of the free D92 by buying five packs of C or D size (total 20 batteries) for just £21.45. This would represent a discount of 37% on the official Epson list price.
Interestingly, the printer can be bought for as low as £25.49 (ex tax) but is also found in some stores at £38.29 (12.5% above list price). Rather alarmingly though, a used model is being sold on eBay at a Buy It Now price of £44.08 (almost 30% above list price).
To help put this in perspective though, for only £24.99 (again ex tax) a customer can buy the Hewlett-Packard Deskjet F2180 – or – if your business wants five of them, they will only cost £17.49 each!! This is a discount of 43% for a single unit or a massive 60% discount for five!
Another amusing combination is the free shredder with purchases of the Samsung SCX4200 mono laser printer – there’s nothing like shredding your new prints! Shame they made a mistake with the advertisement, which refers to a free portable DVD player!
This offer actually refers to the Hewlett-Packard Officejet Pro L7780. With a price from the store of £59.99, the Inovix IDP750 Portable DVD Player represents an effective discount of 20% on the Officejet Pro L7780. Top of Form
This is a nice All-in-One printer with a nice freebie to go with it – an attractive offer for home-based businesses at Christmas time or a great incentive for the department manager or small business owner looking for a new and economical, but heavy duty and highly-specified, colour multifunction printer.
Moving on to colour laser printers, Lexmark’s C5xx series attract significant cash-back offers, amounting to an effective discount of 53% on the store price, at its best, on the 21ppm C534n. This is 43% off Lexmark’s list price.
More impressive though, is the £175 cash-back offer on Hewlett-Packard’s LaserJet 2605dn – a huge discount of 63% on the store price of £277.44 or 51% on the list price.
With a rather lower, but nonetheless worthwhile, discount of 36% on the store price of a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 3600n (29% off list price), even businesses have plenty of special offers to choose from.
With Christmas spending expected to rise in the UK this year – by 2% on gifts and around 7% on average – there could well be money available to spend on printers and some of these offers are certainly playing to that audience.
So, the moral of this Christmas is: check around and see what special offers are there for the taking. The manufacturers are all keen to get there printers out into businesses and homes. But, do check out the Total Cost of Printing first as some special offers may not be the most economical option.
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