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Digital colour printers are becoming more and more popular in Malaysia. A lot of people are jumping into the bandwagon of ca$h - offering colour printing, name card printing, invitation card printing, etc. Profit margin can be quite high for some jobs especially those that come knocking your shop while closing time and need them out immediately.For those with a tight budget, I would suggest Fuji Xerox APEOS multifunction colour device. A great machine to put in the shop and to cater for your customers needs. Colour quality is superior compared to its nearest competitor but then again in this business buying the APEOS is like buying a really good tennis racket for a Wimbledon Game. This multifunction colour device will be THE machine to purchase. However there are other multi-function devices that you could invest in such as Canon, Konica Minolta and the cheapest of the lot, Sharp if there is budget constraints. Depending on the market you serve - most customers aren’t that fussy about colour. As long as they approve before hand that the quality is alright, then any of the multifunctions will do.

Going up scale digital colour printing would be the Fuji Xerox DC5000 machine. Retails at RM400K to RM600K depending on configuration, this is a popular machine for those who are truly serious in the digital colour business. A must have digital machine to have. Running at 50 A4 pages of colour per minute, the colour is superior than any multifunction devices, allowing you to tweek colours, accept high weight paper (300 gsm), print different paper types at ease. Though investment is high but if you have the volume, this is the machine to get. Oh, oh, it offers excellent registration (front and back printing aligned so well that makes cutting without much headache). At RM400K is a high investment and should only consider if your current multifunction device is smoking from feeding it with too much volume.

Higher up the ladder would be the elder brother of the Fuji Xerox DC5000 - The Fuji Xerox DC8080. I cant comment much on this machine but it offers much much more than the 5000. Looking at its nearest competitor would be the Canon and the Kodak Nexpress. We are all looking over a million ringgit for these machines.

The Canon ImagePress, Fuji Xerox DocuColour and Nexpress by Kodak all have very similar features and benefits offering offset print capabilities.
Very durable printer offering one of the best technology in its class.

And finally the king of all kings of digital colour - Fuji Xerox I-Gen 3 or the I-Gen 4. I wont talk about it. Perhaps later.

There are others like the HP Indigo and all but I cant write about it as I have no experience on this product. Happy shopping!

However the real news is reported by Print CEO Blog and some staff of Fuji Xerox who visited me - “Yesterday however there was no doubt about the winner of the hottest product at the show. The winner was on the Xerox stand and it was the UV Coater connected to one of the Xerox iGen3 presses. This coater caught fire on the stand during the demo causing great excitement.”

If you are thinking of opening a digital print shop - you have to prioritise if you wish to do retail or corporate customers or both.Having a retail business has its advantages - If held in a good location, you would be have lots of walk in customers who come by your shop, pay you the premium price, and Cash on Delivery. A good concept would be Mailboxes etc (a US franchise) which we are seeing spreading around KL rapidly.

The look and feel of MBE is nice. Staff well trained and basically it is a one stop center if you want to get things printed, mailed out, binded and even pick up some stationaries or top up your touch and go while waiting for your printing.

Inside a MBE store.

As you can see around there are loads of similar shops like MBE and I have seen quite a number more in the United States. However opening a retail type business doesn’t come cheap especially if you have limited investments or start up capital.

Finding a location also pose another problem. If the location is good, then rental could be expensive. Usually for retail type business, you need the traffic - best location is located in the office areas and college and university areas.

For a start up for a retail business - I would say at least RM300,000.00 is needed - well I believe it is MBE’s franchise license as well to start up a retail business unless you want to go really small time but then again finishing equipments like electronic cutter (RM30K), Black and White Copier (RM20K), Colour Copiers (RM40K) & finishing equipments like wire-o binding machine (RM2K), Paper supplies (RM2K), Computers (RM6K) and minor furnitures and renovations (RM10K) - so easily the start up investments can be quite high and no banks or suppliers will provide you with credit terms unless you have been established in the market for quite some time.

As for corporate business where sales man goes out and get the job, then the investment for look-and-feel is less. One could be operating in the jungles of Malaysia but delivering the job is sufficient. Initial start up capital is much less and finishing can be outsourced - customers are usually given a delivery date so somethings can be outsourced. Though for these kind of jobs, margin is thin and payment is usually in credit terms - but usually corporate jobs are constant compared to walk in. As for retail business margins are usually good, cash business but the set back is they want their things now!!! So you got to be prepared with all the equipments.

Best solution would be having both retail and corporate customer business. With the best of both worlds, you can never go wrong with your print business but however, initial capital is high and you need to hire sales personnels to go out to the market.

For entertainment - Double A paper ad

For those who are interested in opening up your own digital print business -  a word of advise, choose the best printing machine available for your budget. When I first started I was just a print broker. Find one that is reliable and who can service you well - I have a few print brokers who are brokering print jobs and are doing really well. If you are interested, please feel free to email me at hello@shooweb.net

After you have done brokering for a number of years and gotten a good track record in terms of financial means, then it is time to shop for a machine. I got my first machine a Konica Minolta Biz Hub 1050 which costed me RM170,000.00 - a loan which I took from Orix Leasing Malaysia Berhad. They are very thorough in their loan applications but it was approved within 3 weeks.

The machine Konica Minolta BizHub 1050:
The above picuture is the exact specs I have. The machine is great for a start up printer who wishes to maximise on their productivity. The machine can go on 24/7 for two weeks or so without any hiccups. Jam rates are rare in this machine and it could take almost any paper types up to 300 gsm and almost any size between A5 to 12 x 18 inches.

Overall the machine can print an average of 500,000 prints every month without much intervention. Konica Minolta Malaysia support wise is excellent. The engineers are available at nights (they have come by to the office at 10 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays). Moreover this machine offers, folding capabilities, hole punching and stapling unit. As you can see there are 5 high capacity trays offering around 2,000 sheets of paper inserted. With a total of 10,000 sheets of paper at one go. What this tells you is that basically if you have huge printing job, load all the trays with the desired paper and run the machine, go for you teh tarik, shopping and the machine will still be running or when you come back, the jobs are finished. It comes with a large capacity output tray so you do not have to keep unloading the finished output.

Set back : print quality is so so only depending on paper type but it works best on simili paper (woodfree paper) and horrible when you have finished printing on preprinted stock and switching it back to white simili paper. Usually needing service between different print jobs.

Overall for  RM170,000 - it is worth a buy. And a meter click of 1.8 cents, it could allow any business to be profitable and competitive. Nothing comes close on this speed of 105 pages per minute (A4) and 60 pages per minute on A3.

DocuTech 6135 or DocuTech 6180

Used to be the fastest digital printer in its class for over 10 years, Xerox dominated the digital print technology for over a decade. No print technology comes close to this speeds until recently. Currently used by all of the digital printing tai-ko (monsters / boss) in the market today. These machines can print up to a million or more A3s a month almost going non-stop. It offers the lowest meter click in the market but purchasing and maintaining these machines dont come cheap. If you do not have about a million prints every month, you can go bust within a few months buying these machines.

A second hand machine can cost from RM600K right up to RM900K for the new ones. Running at Sun Microsystem RIPs or DocuSP Rips, maintenance of the server alone can cost up to RM2,500 to RM3,500 a month. So no contracted print jobs, dont even consider buying these machines.

Print quality and reliability of this machines is second to none and when we say that they are the best in their class, we really mean it.

Set back - once paper is jammed, it takes a while and lots of areas to clear. Fuji Xerox Malaysia’s technicians are highly skilled in maintaining these machines - most of them have over 10 years in the industry servicing these machines. Though technology wise, these machines may seem old but it only shows how way advanced is Xerox is in terms of technology.

Kodak Digimasters

This was my second machine which I bought. Highly reliable machines and again like the Xerox DocuTech, it doesnt come cheap. Low running cost but high investment. It is not as fast as the Xerox DocuTechs but highly reliable and doesn’t jam much. The Digimasters are easier to maintain than the DocuTechs giving room for a normal operator to do certain maintenance on their own. Jam rate is also less compared to the DocuTechs. It runs on Sun Microsystem RIPs like the DocuTechs so sending any huge job is not a problem. The Digimasters prints darker than the DocuTechs which some customers may like and some would not.

A highly recommended printer if you have the budget. Currently Kodak Digimaster has changed hands to many different owners - first sold by Heidelberg and then Kodak and now its being distributed by Wywy - so a lot of printers out there are still weary about the support of these printers. We just cannot afford any down time on these printers.

Nuvera 288 Digital Perfecting Machine
Now this machine has broken another world record - offering 288 pages per minute double sided printing. Currently only 2 in Malaysia and it offers ground breaking image quality on most materials - art card, art paper. Price wise it is costly and not those who are new in the industry so I wont talk much about it.

Basically I have discussed on digital printers to look or consider when opening a digital print business - if you are really serious. If you dont have the investment power, I would suggest buying small Multifunction device to start off with. Next I will talk about colour digital printers to consider. Good luck!

Pazazz presents one Print Fanatic and his team who love printing!