Brother E-learning Helping you to sell Supplies Basics Part 3 of 3 Understanding Printer Supplies

Introduction When talking about printers, one area is usually overlooked – the Supplies So what do we mean when we talk about supplies? Supplies contain the fuel for which products run on, once used up they will need to be replaced In the printing world this relates to things such as ink cartridges, toner cartridges, drums etc… Just to confuse you, supplies can also be known as Consumables and EOS but at the end of the day they all mean the same thing Lets look at some printer supplies…

Ink/Toner/Drums? You will come across lots of different types of printer supplies, however there are 3 that you will be asked about more than all the rest put together. Drum Units (DR) - toner is transferred to paper via the drum unit, and fused onto the paper by heated rollers. Drum and Toner units can be bought as combined units or individually, depending on the vendor. Ink Cartridges (LC) - these basically contain liquid ink that is deposited on to the paper to create an image. You can buy cartridges as a combined unit or individually, depending on the vendor. Toner cartridges (TN) – these contain toner powder, a fine, dry mixture of plastic particles, carbon, and black or other coloring agents that make the actual image on the paper.

Combined Vs Individual – Fight! The old age question is whether combined units or individual units provide the best value for money for the customer? Take a look at the information below and make your own mind up! Ink – imagine a customer is printing their beach holiday pictures, because of the amount of blue in the picture the CYAN ink will run out before the other colours. If you had a combined unit then you’re throwing a lot of unused ink (MAGENTA, YELLOW) away, right? Whereas with individual ink you simply replace the CYAN cartridge – no wasted ink Toner/ Drum – with drums and toners it’s slightly different but it’s still about the wastage. Generally drums are designed to last longer than the toner cartridge, so if the toner cartridge runs empty why should you have to throw away the drum as well?

The Importance of the Original Supplies, like most other things on sale, will be copied, refilled, rebadged etc and then sold at a fraction of the cost of the original These will be commonly known as the following: Remans- Remanufactured supplies Refills – Refilled supplies Compatibles – Supplies made by a 3 rd party All vendors recommend that the original is the best, but at the end of the day there’s nothing illegal about compatibles and if one compatible Ink cartridge cost £5 and the original cost £10, you can see why they are appealing to customers However it’s all about achieving optimum performance of the product. Only Original supplies can give a customer this guarantee, as only Originals are used when the product is being developed

Know the costs The unit price is only one way of selling supplies Alternative ways of selling supplies are by using CPP and TCO, but what are these? CPP or Cost Per Page - this is worked out by simply dividing the units price of all the supplies by the yield (amount of pages) they will do, for example (please note pricing is for demonstration only) TN-3280 (Toner Cartridge) Yield – 8000 pages Price - £80 CPP = 80/8000 = £0.01 (or 1p) DR-3200 (Drum Unit) Yield – pages Price - £100 CPP = 100/25000 = £0.004 (or 0.4p) Cost per page £0.014

Know the costs TCO or Total Cost of Ownership - This combines the CPP with the cost of machine, and then based on how many pages you print in a month it will give you a true cost over the lifetime of the product To simplify this let’s look at the calculation (please note pricing is for demonstration only) So the total cost of the machine over 3 years, when printing 2,000 pages per month would be £1,208. CPP Amount of pages per month Amount of months Machine Cost TCO CPP 2000 pages per month 36 months £200 unit price £1,208

What cartridge fits a…….? Probably the most common question you’ll be asked when dealing with supplies is... Over time you’ll know this instantly but for now tools such as the Brother compatibility wheel will help “Please can I order a cartridge for my XXXX printer?” “Please can I order a black cartridge for my Brother DCP-145C” “Ok you’ll need a LC-980BK” Sure you get the idea, ask your account manager for this tool For example

Now it’s over to you… So, by now you’ll have completed 3 courses in the “basics” series, if not please check out the other content (Sales Basics & Product Basics) Remember the aim of this series is to give you some basic guidance and hopefully build your confidence when selling printers Please look out for other content such as Selling into Healthcare Selling into Education and much more

Take the Supplies Basics Test now Now you have learnt the basics check your knowledge on what you have learnt in the Supplies basics course, from the benefit of using original supplies to learning about total cost of ownership Take Test