That headline is meant to be ironic. Based on the early returns on our survey about how many dealers are charging for scans, it looks like there aren’t a whole lot of scan artists among the dealer channel. Indeed, dealers who are not charging are handily winning the race 78% to 22%. If you haven’t voted in the survey, you can do so by clicking on the link at the end of my column. I’m going to continue to tally votes for the next couple of weeks.
Last week’s column about charging or not charging for scans has generated a few comments that I want to share with you in case you missed them on The Week in Imaging Website.
It should depend on the proportionality of scanning to printing. If the customer is doing a small amount of scanning, well it’s not a problem, but if the scanning is a high proportion you could be losing money on the support of the DADF and scanner assembly. Maybe we should allow a nominal block of scans annually in our service contracts and then charge a rate for excess above that.
In some way the costs of maintaining the device have to be covered. Doing so explicitly is more transparent than trying to hide it as the industry has done to date. In the end it’s all about how you package the whole deal and a scan charge may be a part of the overall mix.
I guess OEMs should be manufacturing more scanners than copiers, instead of concocting more service plans…eh?
If you have any comments about the validity or not of charging for scans, please share them. I’d love to hear more as I would imagine your peers in the business.
Thanks for reading.
