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Kyocera and Savin,
Kyocera when selling a 470 because the scan quality is a little better due to .jpg ability.
And Savin on any deal because they are selling the systems at ridiculously low prices. When you have a system such as the 240, you don't discount the product. There isn't any competition except yourself.
I have run into xeorox and of course Savin. I run into a pricing issue with Savin...they always discount. My price was higher but product knowledge is how we got the sale. We were only a few hundred higher. Kip and Oce are always around on the deals here in West Palm Beach, FL.
Xerox, is my main competition in the Louisville, KY area. However, in Lexington I have an OCE dealer who shows up occasionally. Xerox seems to have an abundance of used equipment, which they are almost giving away. This in conjunction with the volume ratings for the 240 create an issue. We all know that the customers idea of what volume they do and what they actually do are two different things. In every instance of 240 installs I have done, the customer thinks they will be low volume and then when they get the equipment and see how easy it is to use their volumes increase. Xerox targets this and encourages them to go with a higher volume machine at the refurb cost.
My company is new to the Wide Format market, but this is what I have seen. Pricing is very similar.....Xerox is always around as is OCE. I don't have lots of product knowledge, and have only placed 1 piece so far, and it' has been a nightmare..

The biggest challenge that I see right now is HP. I have been looking for applications where people are currently using plotters....Everything always goes great but HP can sell a plotter with a scan option for under 6k....The differnce on the front is hard to offset the differeces on the rears with supplies, not only that, the HP gives the opportuntity to provide full color.
My main problem is that almost ALL my competition is now allowed to sell their product (Xerox & Oce are the main ones) and MY 240w product. I could understand if it increased market share for the Ricoh, but it doesn't. The only one that loses is me because now I have to go down on price while the competition is fumbling around telling them all wrong information (like that you can just use your current desktop for the print server). I have lost one deal to a freaking dealer that has a yahoo email address for their company...that is how out of control it is getting. This should have been a time that I could make just a little money and put out a great product, but now with everyone and their brother selling, that isn't the case. Thanks...
repost from the league

In response to your issues - yes - Ricoh is following/benchmarking Oce's practice of setting up dealer vendors at local repro shops that sell only Ricoh wide format (instead of full product line). This has been a successful model for Oce and I could only imagine that Ricoh wants to follow suit. Duncan-Parnell is a Carolinas based Wide Format Repro/Surveyor Supplies/Xerox full line wide format dealer with roughly 1,200 wide format placements in this area. They have just recently begun to sell the Ricoh 240W product only. It is a little frustrating as they have marketing resources specific to wide format to tap from (that Ikon has not negotiated), but there are ways around it.

1) Usually when I go head to head with a Repro-House, I point out that the print shops usually sell other brands but use Oce in-house. If Xerox is so good, then why do they use Oce behind closed doors? -- I don't know how that is going to work now that they will be selling the exact same thing that I am selling.

2) Service Tech familiararity - Their service techs have just begun learning the intricacies of handling Ricoh wide format - instead of Ikon/or your vendor - who has been in it since the beginning.

Other than that, this practice of infiltrating through the wide format repro's is going to be a big challenge to overcome and will commodotize the product offering because there aren't a whole lot of differentiators from one vendor's Ricoh 240w to my Ricoh 240W. That is where Trix software and knowing some short-cuts like that may help.
Thanks Doc....you are right and that is what I do...but when both companies have to trim down there pricing in a bidding war when in front of a brand new client...Ricoh is the only one that wins from that. In the short run, it makes sense to try to get your product to as many vendors as possible, but it is biting the hand that feeds you. There is no loyalty in that and this is disappointing. Plus, when the competition finally gets a 240w of there own, I don't think they will push both: they will go right back to the product they primarily carry. Then the Ricoh only dealers, who should have had the leg up on the competition, is now back to square one.

For the record, I think in the long term, it is a terrible way to treat the vendors that have been selling Ricoh family wide format for years and NOW that we have a tool that really raises the bar: give it to the competition.
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