Some of you may have noticed the recent "sweepstakes" promo for the 470W. It is an "OK" promo, seems likes 240W sales have slowed the 470W to a crawl.
The 240W prints @ 4 pages a minute compare to 6 for the 470W, and yes the 470W can handle a higher volume per month and has a dual roll feeder standard and also has a better stacking system. However, how can Ricoh justify the cost of the 470W now?, based on DMAP level 1 pricing the 470W ia almost twice the cost of the 240W and it does not give twice the speed.
Based on cost per drawing for speed the 240W comes in at $2,500 per drawing (4 per minute), the 470W is $3,300 per drawing (6 per minute).
My take is to re-postion the 470 with a lower wholesale cost of $2,500 x 6.
Now that the 240W is hot!, we can turn potential 240's into 470's (where the LF per month is on the edge of the max volume rating). But can we do it at twice the cost for only a 50% increase in speed?
By lowering the price point dealers will be able to become more agressive in the higher volumes and capture more TDV.
Ricoh has the opportunity to capture a very large segment of the market if they could pull this off.
My opinion is that the promo is not a very good
one, you have to sell three to get an entry. Thats about $60,000 in wholesale cost. How many more 470w's will be sold across the county with this promo? Maybe 100, or maybe 50? or maybe 25. I have been concentrated on wide format sales for the last 120 days and I have not had one opportunity to place of these with the current price point.
Just my thoughts, would like to hear what everyone else thinks/
Art
Original Post