Canon pushes channel promo to boost scanner sales

Resellers can win up to £1,000 by selling the vendor's printers and scanners

Canon has launched a promotion aimed at channel partners and end users which could see resellers win up to £1,000, in a bid to boost scanner and printer sales.

Resellers will earn bonus points on Canon's partner programme, Zoom-In on Canon (ZIoC), when they sell any of the printers and scanners in the promotion. The ZIoC points are exchanged for monetary rewards, usually in the form of a pre-paid card.

Resellers that sell more than seven models from the promotion before 16 December 2016 can win one of three cash prizes of £250, £500 and £1,000.

End users will get a free three-year warranty and ReadIris Pro 15 document flow software bundled on the scanners. They will also be entered into a draw for the chance to win £2,000 and e-vouchers for Virgin Experience days.

Canon distributor Tech Data is backing the promotion. Its business development manager for print, Steve Martin, said that resellers should be interested in the promotion because he believes scanners are still important equipment for businesses, meaning there is space for a channel push.

"Scanners still play an important part in the market, with document archiving, document flows and document management," he said. "While we like to think we are living in a paperless world, there is still a lot of paper that needs to get into the system, and this provides an opportunity for resellers. The more we push the promotion, the more it will help drive business through Canon."

Despite Gartner research showing that in 2015 unit shipments fell to below 100 million for the first time in 10 years, Martin said that printers are still needed in offices, and the market isn't going anywhere.

"Printing is still a key point in businesses and still has a part to play," he added. "Printers are becoming a way to manage document flow around a workplace. There is also legality, ad hoc marketing, proofing etc that all require printing. There is still a case where paper is required as a backup."

Dave Vile (pictured right), managing director of analyst Freeform Dynamics, said that while the printer market is "not dead", it is not growing much either, but there is still a small demand for the products.

"People are trying to reduce the amount of paper they use, but we are still going to have a lot of paper moving around organisations for the next few years. It is just the way humans work and the way transactions work. I don't think the market is going to go away but it is certainly very flat. It is very much a maintenance market now; people managing their print costs as opposed to trying to do too much," he said.

"But there is still activity out there and still margins to be made. The problem is how you get people to take notice of the promotion. If you work in an office and a printer has been sitting there for five years, you just live with it. What you probably don't realise is it is consuming a lot more energy than a newer printer. Sometimes switching out an older piece of kit can actually save a bit of money in the long term. It is not necessarily something people prioritise. So that is where promotions can help."