Technical Bulletin 22nd October 2015
22nd October 2015
Remax World Expo 2015 was located in Zhuhai China, an area which is often referred to as the world centre for printer consumables. The Pearl River delta where Zhuhai is located has over 600 factories specialising in printer consumables. This makes it a perfect location to hold an industry trade show. Not only can you visit the show but in many cases you can also organise a tour of a factory to view/verify for yourself the quality of the goods and the quality procedures that are employed.
Below is a quick summary of the latest news from our attendance at the Remax World Expo 2015.
Conference
The conference took place on two half days and this was a change to previous years as the conference was also running at the same time the expo was open. I do believe this prevented a few more people from attending the conference which was a shame as it was in my opinion one of the better industry conferences that I have attended for a long time.
It had a good balance of marketing, technical, ecommerce and information presentations.
Mergers Acquisitions and Legals
There was a lot of discussion regarding mergers and acquisitions and conglomeration of this now maturing industry. Some of the more notable was of course a major chip manufacturer from China acquiring SCC from the USA. The other news which is closer to home is that SGT which is a Chinese drum manufacturer has taken over Cartridge World Global. Cartridge World as we all know was founded in Australia and since has become a world wide success story.
Legal Eagles from the USA and Europe updated us on previous and current cases both by and against OEMs. Legal precedence and the application of Patent law in differing countries was of great interest.
New Epson CISS Style Printers Finally Hitting the Australian market
Epson has finally released their ecotank range of printers finally to the Australian market. Similar models have been available in some of the Asian countries for the last couple of years. The ECOTANK range of printers are different to the traditional style printer as you top up the ink container with ink from a bottle. These printers are essentially cartridge-less and the printers are advertised as including up to 2 years worth of printing ink. Printer models start with the Ecotank Expression ET-2500 at RRP of $449.00. Will this system gain traction in the Australian market?
Brothers new Monochrome 100 page per minute inkjet printer
While we are still marvelling at the print speeds of the Memjet and officejet pro-X series from HP. It looks like Brother has toppled them all with a new inkjet printer in their Professional High Speed Range. The printer is the HL-5700DN and while it is only a monochrome printer it is rated at up to 100 pages per minute. It uses a HC-05BK ink cartridge which contains enough ink to print approx 30,000 ISO/IEC 24711 pages. The RRP of the printer is $3499.00
New Full Page Width Printhead Inkjet Printers are Coming
True inkjet printers speeds of 50+ pages per minute in the past were just a dream. But the market is changing as more and more manufacturers are producing printers using full page width inkjet arrays. The advantage is that the printhead does not need to move across the printer during printing and therefore a tremendous improvement in printing speed can be achieved.
What's happening now and it has been for some time, is that HP is driving the market for inkjet office machines. The advantage to HP is that they own their inkjet technology while their laser printers are developed or partly developed by another manufacturer.
Epson now for a number of years has forsaken their laser technology and are concentrating directly on the inkjet market. Canon recently has offered their durable Maxify range to compete in the low end office printing market.
While inkjet printers were traditionally designed for the SOHO/Home and photographic market, more and more machines have recently been designed to replace laser printers . On the other side to this equation we have also seen that low cost colour toner machines are available for under $200 from companies such as Fuji Xerox and Brother. The old “toner vs inkjet war – which is better?” is hotting up again!
3D Printing
At the expo there were a number of 3D printing manufacturers. Overall I can see that the quality of the machines are improving and that the number of filaments available are increasing in numbers. In the beginning only ABS or PLA plastic of various colours were available. Now various types of nylons, glow in the dark plastics, rubber type materials, materials that give the appearance of glass, materials which contain wood etc filaments are now available for the common 3D printer.
Canon released a press release stating that that they too will be producing their own machine. Although it may take up to two years to release they promise greatly improved quality and speed over what is currently available.
Industry Awards Presentations and 3D Printed Fashion Show
As we are all aware award presentations unless you expect to receive an award can be a bit long in the tooth. I could not for-see any awards coming my way – although I should have won the award for the tallest audience member! But somehow for whatever reason there was no award for this! Once in a while I would like to see some randomness in awards. But congratulations to all the award winners as I am sure sure it was well deserved and it's always good to receive recognition for your hard work!
As the awards presentation continued and with each award given I knew my chances were decreasing. I couldn't help it but my mind wandered to the 3D fashion parade which would commence immediately after the award presentations finished. I was curious to see what interesting fashion could be made from creative minds and 3D printers.
I must admit that I was a little disappointed as I was expected some futuristic or out-there styles. Instead it seemed that only the accessories were 3D printed which was what not we were expecting. Overall it was good entertainment but if I was to give out an award it would have been to the magician! He was on just before the Fashion show and I must admit I really don't know how some of his tricks were done. I kept thinking 'redirection' but alas magicians 83 – Shane 0.
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| The RT Imaging Summit (Conference) | Inside the Remax World Expo | RT Imaging Awards Presentations |
Value of Brand and Pricing
There was quite an interesting discussion on pricing with the common opinion being that the industry is shooting itself in the foot. Demands for lower prices is really hurting everybody's bottom line, but unfortunately it's also affecting the quality of the manufacturers. To compete in many cases some manufacturers are using the absolute lowest cost components in their cartridges. Of course the end result is predictable!
Whilst we here at Ausjet always deal with the highest grade manufacturers and request high grade components, overall it's a bad trend for the industry – driven down by pricing from large business models such as ebay and amazon.
One example where a good brand can make a difference is in Europe where the Pelikan brand is very well known. The RRP of these products is 80% of the OEM even though the product quality is comparable to other products selling at much lower market prices . As you can see the value of a brand such as Ausjet could be very profitable.
How to Compete against E-commerce stores such as Amazon and Ebay
Another topic that came up was how to do you compete against such low prices and the answer is to use your strengths. For example use your personality – learn about social media such as twitter and facebook and use them with your local community. Go and visit your customers and potential customers in your area. People do understand that if you have a shop front that your overheads will be higher than most ebay sellers. A personal delivery from you will surely guarantee a loyal customer
The concensus is that by using a brand, personality, social media, reputation and visiting your local area low priced online competition can be combatted.
Remember Ebay and Amazon do not have the ability to personally support their customers, you and I do!
I hope this information has been helpful to yourself
Shane
