Dell does deal on printer offers as market falls

Four initiatives to improve sales of its lasers

Dell has announced four initiatives to encourage businesses to buy its laser printers.

According to Duncan Vass, an EMEA printer product marketing staffer at Dell: "We have listened carefully to our customers and the wider market, and developed these initiatives to help ease some of their real concerns regarding printer investment."

Dell print assured: The vendor promises that printer products bought in the UK, France or Germany will be repaired and customers will nevertheless receive their money back if their Dell printer fails (by means of a Dell-verified technical fault) in its first 12 months.

Trade to save: Eligible businesses may receive up to £100 to trade in their old printer, scanner or fax machine. The traded-in printer, scanner or fax will be recycled, but the promotion is only available on certain UK products.

Half-price toner: Customers who buy a Dell 2350d or Dell 2350dn laser printer with an additional toner cartridge can claim back half their toner purchase price, excluding VAT, in cash, until 30 November.

Toner buy-back: Businesses that buy a qualifying Dell printer can trade in unwanted toner cartridges to claim up to £100 cash back, or up to £50 per cartridge. Dell promises to pay £5 towards the cost of posting in the cartridges, which will be subtracted from the cash-back.

Sales forecasts
August saw Dell slash its sales forecast for 2012, sparking a fall of its stocks globally. According to newswire Reuters, the vendor's full-year revenue growth for next year is only expected to hit 1-5 per cent, half its previous prediction.

The Texan vendor also appears unable to shift the top-five hardcopy peripherals (HCP) vendors – HP, Canon, Epson, Brother and Lexmark – from its global rankings, according to September figures from IDC.

The printer market is seeing its strongest growth from the laser category, but overall it is continuing to slow outside of emerging markets.

Phuong Hang, programme manager for IDC's quarterly worldwide hardcopy peripherals tracker, said: "The developed regions [in Q2] recorded the first quarter of negative shipment growth since Q1 2010, resulting in a year-over-year decline of 0.3 per cent in the overall HCP market."

Laser sales grew four per cent year on year by shipments and increased market share one point to 32 per cent. Monochrome sales increased five per cent year over year, although monochrome sales did not grow in Western Europe or the US.

Global sales of colour lasers fell three per cent year on year by units – the first negative trend since 2009, according to Hang.