Wednesday, July 29, 2009

A New Shopping Cart

We finally did it. We have a turn-key shopping cart with a popular distributor's content. Yes, we added a cross reference, normally called a "Supplies Finder". This shopping cart has everything for someone to start selling printing supplies online in one day. All that is needed - your marketing of the site to your customers.

We have included these features:
  • SEO capability for each web page
  • SEO ready for each product category
  • SEO for each product
  • Sitemap for Search Engines
  • Google Checkout
  • PayPal Check Out
  • Verisign Checkout
  • Normalized data of products
  • Easy updated for prices
  • Easily change the content
  • Google Analytics
  • Easily Manage Orders
  • CRM Package
  • Newsletter Management
  • Product Feeds for Google, Yahoo Shopping, Shopzilla and PriceGrabber
  • Coupons
  • Pre-Designed Reports for Sales and Marketing
  • Customer Category Prices
And our favorite - A self managed Affiliate program.

But to top it off, we have built a supplies finder system for this specific website for over 4,000 printing supplies, data storage, and other computer accessories.

We have also given it a URL that describes Printer Supplies, (perfect for good ranking with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Bing).

Is there a reseller looking to get into the business of selling ink & toner supplies. This is a turn-key solution. Call us and we might show it to you.

We will be showing it off at the World Expo Show - so stop by our booth.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Brother MICR Printer

Finally Brother gets into the check printing business with the introduction on their new HL-5255DN MICR check printer. This machine is a derivative of the HL-5200 Series but takes special supplies.

  • Up to 30 ppm print speed
  • Up to 1200 x 1200 dpi print quality
  • 32MB of memory standard, upgradeable to 544MB1
  • PCL6 and BR-Script3 emulations
  • Automatic duplexing for two-sided printing
  • 300-sheet standard paper input capacity
  • 250-sheet paper tray
  • 50-sheet multi-purpose tray
  • Up to 800-sheet total input capacity via two optional paper trays
  • Ethernet, Parallel and USB 2.0 interfaces
  • MICR toner meets ASC X.9 ANSI standards7
  • In-Box contents include 2 toner cartridges for printing approx. 7000 checks (at 5% coverage)

Supplies:
Toner Cartridge Part Number -MICR-555
Drum Unit Part Number - DR-555MICR


Monday, July 27, 2009

Lexmark's Master Plan


We put an interesting thought on Lexmark at the end of this 2 - what is your thoughts?


Lexmark reports second quarter results LEXINGTON, Ky. - 07/21/2009

Lexmark International, Inc. (NYSE: LXK) today announced financial results for the second quarter of 2009. Second quarter revenue was $905 million, down 21 percent compared to revenue of $1.14 billion last year as weak global economic conditions continued to negatively impact demand for both hardware and supplies.

  • 2Q2009 - GAAP Earnings Per Share $0.22
  • 2Q2008 - GAAP Earnings Per Share $0.89
  • 2Q2009 - Restructuring Charges $0.33
  • 2Q2008 - Restructuring Charges $0.07
  • 2Q2009 - Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share $0.56
  • 2Q2008 - Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share $0.96

Second quarter GAAP earnings per share were $0.22. Excluding $0.33 per share for restructuring-related activities, earnings per share for the second quarter of 2009 would have been $0.55. Second quarter 2008 GAAP earnings per share were $0.89. Earnings per share for the second quarter of 2008 would have been $0.96 excluding $0.07 per share for restructuring-related activities.

“While second quarter results were in line with our expectation, global economic conditions continue to negatively impact Lexmark and the overall distributed printing market,” said Paul J. Curlander, Lexmark chairman and chief executive officer. “Despite this, we made good progress during the quarter on our key strategic initiatives in both divisions.

“Specifically, we continued the rollout of new laser products with the introduction of the new Lexmark C730/X730 Series of color laser printers and MFPs. Our ongoing initiatives in color laser and laser MFPs drove good unit growth in both of these segments during the quarter.

“The progress of our inkjet technology development team culminated in the announcement last week regarding our new line of inkjet AIOs featuring Lexmark’s new Vizix inkjet technology, including three new Web-connected, touch screen, business focused AIOs," Curlander said.

Second quarter Printing Solutions and Services Division revenue of $624 million declined 18 percent year to year. Imaging Solutions Division revenue of $281 million declined 25 percent compared to a year ago.

In the second quarter of 2009:
• Gross profit margin was 31.0 percent versus 36.6 percent in 2008.
• Operating expense was $253 million compared to $316 million last year.
• Operating income margin of 3.1 percent includes $32 million pretax restructuring-related charges. Operating income margin in 2008 of 8.9 percent included $9 million pretax restructuring-related charges.
• Net earnings for the quarter were $17 million compared to second quarter 2008 net earnings of $84 million.

On a non-GAAP basis, excluding restructuring-related charges, in the second quarter of 2009:
• Gross profit margin would have been 33.4 percent, down 3.6 percentage points from 37.0 percent in the same period last year, principally due to a decline in product margins.
• Operating expense would have been $243 million, a reduction of 22 percent from last year primarily driven by reduced marketing and general and administrative expense.
• Operating income margin would have been 6.6 percent, down from 9.6 percent last year.
• Net earnings would have been $43 million, compared to $90 million in the second quarter of 2008.

The company ended the quarter with $810 million in cash and current marketable securities. Second quarter net cash provided by operating activities was $84 million. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $79 million. Depreciation and amortization in the quarter was $63 million.

Simple questions, are they setting themselves to be acquired or to go private?

So who would be the best bet to acquire Lexmark?

  • Private Venture Firm
  • Xerox
  • Dell
  • Samsung
  • Hewlett Packard
  • How about Panasonic or Okidata? These two would be interesting!
We still like going out on the financial message boards and and see what possible rumors are being discussed.

Friday, July 17, 2009

How Much to Print Out a Presentation?

It can be a difficult task to calculate printing costs, much less to calculate the coverage on toner usage on a page unless you utilize technology. There are sample copies of pages with estimated page coverage to calculate page yield. But they all vary in colors, text and pictures, but do they actual mimic what your actual business printing needs?

Typically a manufacturer of color printer toner cartridge estimates the page yield of 5%. Do you actually think this is in the real world?

How about those PowerPoint presentation you printed. Most presentations page coverage is about 75%. How about those flyers you print, print coverage can be up to 50%.

Do the math here for a presentation printout - 50% compared to the 5% that a manufacturer leads you to believe. Your costs per print, just went up 10 fold.

We have found a software application to help in the estimating of the page coverage before you print. Estimate your actual page coverage as your are ready to print.

Download the color laser printing cost estimator
software here.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Lexmark's New Names

Lexmark will be coming out with a few new printers in September 2009.


Impact, Interact and Intuition for home users and for Small Business User Prevail, Prestige and Platinum. Prices range from $99 to $399.

New marketing concept? Will it work?

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Another Bankruptcy Coming Soon

Word on the street is that another Office Products company is on the verge of liquidation due to financial issues. Vasanta, formerly called Kingfield Heath, in 2007 and then merged with computing supply company ISA and Supplies Team could be heading into some financial troubles.
Our best goes out to some of our former collegues that have been working with these guys. We know they are the survivors and will be able to move on.

We have included the recent article from the Telegraph.co.uk about Vasanta and their recent troubles.