So it’s Sign & Digital UK time, and you’re ready to take yourself off to the show in order to secure yourself a nice discount on that new wide-format printer that you want.
Traditionally, if you want to get a discounted price on the purchase of your shiny new printer, there is only one sure-fire method: you talk to multiple suppliers of the same hardware, and you play them off against each other. Dutch auction, race to the bottom - call it what you will – but by putting your potential suppliers in the ring together to fight it out, you’ll almost certainly get a sizeable discount on your printer's usual purchase price. Great news, right? Well actually no, not really.
With the above scenario - when you look at the bigger picture - everyone loses. Worse still, you’ve probably created a sizeable list of enemies, some with very long memories
What you inadvertently did is create winners and losers in your printer purchasing process, and naturally the losers are none too pleased.
Even the company that won your business - and I use the term ‘won’ very loosely indeed - will probably have a pretty dim view of you. It will be noted that you took all of the margin out of the deal, and you’ll possibly get treated accordingly in the future. Don’t be too surprised if you subsequently receive second-rate training, poor quality after-sales support, and less than enthusiastic assistance should your printer ever break down. Well, you did chisel away the operating profit that supports all of those extended after sales services after all.
The bottom line, there really is no such thing as a free ride and you’ve quite possibly shot yourself in the foot when it comes to the long term outlook.
So, is there any way to get a big discount on your hardware, without creating enemies and animosity?
CMYUK thinks so. They’ve looked at the above scenario and they’ve rightly realised that a significant number of their customers spend a significant amount of money with them every month on media and ink. In many cases the annual profit on these consumable sales is greater than the margin made on the hardware sale. So why not reward these consumables customers with reduced hardware costs? A loyalty card of sorts that offer hardware discount by default. And how about formalising this so it becomes a seamless and easily manageable process for both supplier and customer?
Well that is exactly what CMYUK has done. CSAF, or 'Consumable Supported Asset Finance’ by its full name, is a very simple purchasing solution that CMYUK has developed in conjunction with Paragon Bank Business Finance.
You switch some or all of your consumables spend to CMYUK, and they then contribute a monthly amount directly into your finance agreement, reducing your monthly payment.
The more consumables you purchase from CMYUK, the more you save.
So how does it work ?
You tell CMYUK what materials you buy on a monthly basis and they then quickly analyse the data and let you know how much CMYUK will potentially contribute towards your monthly finance agreement.
They guarantee to price match or beat your current purchase rates and supply you with either exactly the same products or equivalent products of the same quality.
The competitive hardware finance is simple too.
Your agreement with Paragon Bank Business Finance will have two direct debits every month. One from you, and one from CMYUK. There is no limit to the level of contribution, so CMYUK could reduce your monthly finance cost literally to zero.
The contribution from CMYUK will continue for as long as you keep purchasing consumables, so it's a win win scenario. You dramatically reduce the cost of your monthly finance and you have no increase in your material purchase costs.
And that, according to CMYUK is how you get significantly reduced hardware, without compromising your reputation.
