One of the key things one needs to do when setting up a business and more so a small business is to pay great attention to the items the seed capital is used to buy. If you are setting up a small business and one that will be based at home, one of the areas you can save on is using your home printer for the business as opposed to buying a separate one for the business. Nevertheless, the ideal home printer for your small business has a lot to do with your type of business.

Some small businesses require a lot of paper work which means more printing while others do very little printing. Further, some businesses are more inclined towards graphics printing while others are more focused on text prints and this will also play a part in the type of home printer that is ideal for the business. Therefore, before deciding whether to stick your existing home printer or buying a new one for the sake of your business, you must take all the key factors into consideration.

Image printing

Even though laser printers are in many respects considered superior to ink jet printers, if you intend to use the printer for printing color images, then ink jet printers are the way to go. Ink jet printers produce detailed and good quality photos that only a high quality laser printer would be able to achieve. Even then such laser printers can be very expensive.

If your small business will entail printing colored documents such as business brochures with quality, an ink jet printer will get the job done right and at a reasonable price. Some of the small home based businesses that would do well with a color ink jet printer include an architectural business, graphic designer, interior designer and photographer. Also note that the printer is only one side of the equation. In order to get quality image prints, you will also require good quality printing paper.

Text printing

If on the other hand your business is more inclined towards text printing, then you have a lot more options to choose from. For text printing, a laser printer is probably the best alternative for most home based businesses.

The technology used by laser printers means that they are optimized for good text printing and can achieve better quality text prints than an ink jet printer. There is a much lower probability for text smudging, a problem that is inherent many ink printers. The laser printer would thus be ideal for such home based small businesses and professionals such as book authors, attorneys and motivational speakers.

If you hardly or do not require to print any images or graphics, you can go for a simple low priced monochrome laser printer. However, if your work will require a moderate level of graphics such as pie charts and diagrams, you may need to pay a little more for a higher quality graphic printer to obtain better print quality.

Speed and volumes of printing

Another key determinant of the type of printer to get for your small business is the quantity of print work that your business deals with. The volume of printing work has an effect on the speed of printing something that is denoted as pages per minute (ppm) in the printer’s specifications. Though ink jet manufacturers have done a lot to improve the speed of their printers, the speeds remain much slower than those of laser printers. Therefore, if you have a lot of printing work and need it done fast, then a laser printer is the best alternative for your business.

Overall cost

Cost will be a key factor in your choice of the home and small business printer you go for. There are many costs that you need to consider when buying a printer. But you must not only focus on the shelf price of a printer but on the maintenance costs as well.

Ink jet printers are usually much cheaper than laser printers of similar specification. However, the maintenance cost of an inkjet printer can be much higher than that of a laser printer. The inkjet printer exhausts the toner much faster than the laser printer does. This of course will be factor of what you print. For instance, printing high quality color photos and images will consume your printer toner even much faster.

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If you are looking for a printer for the purpose of printing photographs, it is important to make sure that you are getting one that is going to give you the best possible results, especially if your printer is for business use. When you are printing photos that will be used in your business, sold to customers or printed for customers, you have to make sure that your printer has every possible printer feature out that is of any true importance. After you see the difference between a quality printer and a poorly made printer, you might even want to make sure that you have the better printer in your home as well.

Ink and Paper

One of the last things people tend to think about is the cost and quality of the ink and paper that usually comes with or goes with the printer. You want to make sure that your price per picture is going to be reasonable and that you are getting quality stuff. Otherwise, you might want to go ahead and take a look at some other options. If you are spending too much per picture, you either have to push that expense on to your customers or eat the costs yourself. Either way, you will find yourself losing money and that would not be a fun experience.

Inkjet or Thermal-Dye

You really can produce great photographs with either of these, but if there is a chance that you will be going for long periods in between printing pictures, then you might want to go for the thermal-dye printer. This is because it uses an ink that will not dry up on you. Of course, since the printer paper has to go through the thermal-dye printers four times total, the actual speed of the thermal-dye printer is going to be slower than the inkjet printer.

Another thing to consider is the durability of the ink that is used from the printers. You might want a clear overcoat on your photos. The thermal-dye printers will do this for you which means your photos will be protected from UV and sunlight fading. If smudge and water resistance is something you find more important, then the inkjet printer is the printer for you.

Size of Prints

When shopping for a printer for your business, or even for the house, you want to make sure that you are getting a printer that will print the appropriate size photos for what you need. If you are going to need large photos printed, you will have to specifically look for a printer that will do that. All printers will print the smaller 4×6 inch and smaller photos.

Preference of Paper

Some photo printers will only use certain types of printer paper. If your business requires you to print matte instead of glossy, you need to make sure that the printer will allow for that. Most people assume that a photo printer can use any type of paper that they want, but that is not always the case.

Price

After you have figured out all of the printer features that you need to have for your photo printer, it is important that you are doing a little comparison shopping. The more you compare prices, the better deal you will find. There is no reason to pay more for your photo printer than you have to.

It is also important to make sure that you are getting a quality warranty with your photo printer. The success of your business depends on it. Just make sure that you are taking your time to discover which is the best quality photo printer for you needs. Check out some reviews and do as much research as possible. The more research you do, the better printer you will end up with in the end.

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In today’s economic environment it is often difficult for small businesses to compete against the corporate giants. In order to get your name out there and bring business in, small businessmen and women need to make the most of the affordable advertising sources at hand. For most small businesses this means being limited to advertising by word of mouth, business cards and sending out or distributing flyers.

Unfortunately, flyers are probably the most underused advertising resource available to the home or small business. The reason for this is that most home and small business owners simply don’t know when to use flyers to promote their business or how to use them effectively.

What Types of Business Should Use Flyers

While any business can benefit from the use of flyers they can be especially beneficial to home and small businesses simply because they are an affordable way to advertise. Using a flyer at the right time and in the right way can increase your sales dramatically.

Take a small home business that sells scented candles or natural soap. Chances are if your business is based at home and you are just starting out and that you are attending craft shows and other events where you can display your products and get them seen by the public. People stop and look at your wares and may buy now or may decide to buy later. Handing out flyers to everyone who stops by your booth will not only give them your contact information but can also contain a picture or two of your product which will serve as a reminder to just how wonderful your product looked. While some of these flyers may end up in the garbage, others will travel some good distance and will result in future sales either from the person who saw your product or by someone they know.

The same hold true of many a small business. Perhaps you are a small caterer or dog groomer trying to increase you clientele, or someone who has a special service to offer. Distributing flyers may be just what your business needs to bring in some new clients or customers. Even if your flyers only result in a handful of people trying your service once they are satisfied they will spread the news by word of mouth.

Does My Business Need A Special Printer To Produce Flyers?

Whether or not you need a special printer to produce your flyers depends on the type of flyers you intend on sending out. Flyers that are merely text with no color pictures can often be done on the printer your business uses now.

However, if you really want your flyer to come alive, then having a color picture or two that is of professional quality is extremely important. If you want those scented candles to look real, or that fruit platter to make a potential clients mouth water, then you are going to want to invest in a high quality commercial printer designed for small and moderate sized businesses.

Companies such as HP and Epson make some great quality printers for reasonable cost and there are other companies who make printers as well.

What Should I Look For When Shopping For a Printer?

Before shopping for a printer, assess your needs both today and for in the future. First, you need to decide if you want an ink jet or laser printer. Doing some research will help you decide which printer will suit your needs the best. Second, keep in mind that any printer you purchase needs to be compatible with your current computer system and any system you plan on getting in the near future. Third, take the time to shop around and actually see the quality of color photos the printer produces and then take the time to compare.

In addition, you will want to know about the warranty on the printers you buy and the service contracts should your printer need to be repaired and figure this contract into the cost of the printer. You are also going to want to choose a printer that will not become obsolete in a year or so and will be able to handle the extra work of your expanding business.

Professional flyers can help your business to grow and having a quality printer can help you produce flyers that are a true work of art.

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Which type of printer is the best value, all things considered? Laser or Ink-jet? Generally speaking, with respect to quality of image, production capacity and economy of use, you cannot beat a black and white laser printer. Laser printers use static electricity, toner, and heat to produce images, whereas ink-jet printers use liquid ink printer cartridges.

Laser printers tend to cost more than ink-jets initially, but toner cartridges cost much less, when compared to ink cartridges, in terms of the number of documents each is able to yield per dollar spent. In a business situation where “time is money,” laser printers are able to produce multiple copies of documents much, much faster than ink-jet printers. One thing that I notice is an overall  tendency concerning how the cost of the machine relates to the cost of usage per output. There are some exceptions-but in general-the higher the printer price, the lower the cost of materials per production capacity.

Economy Depends on the Printers Purpose

Obviously, depending on a company’s, an individual’s, or a family’s needs, the criteria necessary to determine the best overall value, will need to take into account the cost vs. the utility with regard to the specific purpose(s) of the printer. Simply put, a college student who only prints a term paper once in awhile, a parent who occasionally prints a newsletter for the P.T.A. or someone who mainly prints directions from MapQuest will never get their money’s worth out of a high capacity, multi-tasking,  laser printer!

What we will focus on here are ink-jet printers for personal or small business use. Having said that, let’s take a look at the two categories of ink-jet printers, and see which models are rated the top three in their class, based on information compiled from a number of credible sources including, Consumer Reports and PC World.com.

The most recent comprehensive reports on printers I was able to verify were done at the end of 2009. Most, if not all, are still available for purchase. Newer models are continuously being introduced and ratings information appears to be compiled toward the end of the calendar year. Since we are right in the middle of 2010, this is as up-to-date as I can get at this time.

A Word about Ink Cartridges

With regard to most ink-jet printers, cartridges that are refillable can save you money. I recommend having them refilled professionally by a retailer such as Wal-greensTM. They will not charge you if they are unable to refill the cartridge, so you do not have the risk of paying for a do-it-yourself kit and not having success in refilling the cartridges. There is usually a limit to how many times a cartridge can be successfully refilled before it deteriorates. In my own experience, I have only been successful refilling cartridges myself two out of the five times that I attempted to do so-all with cartridges that had not been previously refilled. Doing it yourself can be messy and frustrating. I do not recommend it.

Basic Ink-Jet Printers

Basic Ink-Jet printers have one function, which is to print photos and documents. The printers in this class do not come with additional features such as scanning, copying, or fax capabilities.

Costs per photo and for text documents include ink and paper. Prices of printers are for new machines.

It appears that Hewlett-Packard has cornered the market in this category, occupying the top three spots at the end of 2009.

    * The top spot belongs to the HP Photosmart D7560. It ranges in price from $109.00 to $150.00. It has a quality rating of ‘excellent’, takes about a minute and a half to produce a 4×6 color photo, at a cost of about 35 cents. For text documents the quality is still very good. The D7560 can print slightly over 7 pages per minute at a cost slightly less than 4 cents per page.

     * Second is the HP Officejet Pro 8000 Wireless it rates ‘very good’ for photo quality and costs retails for $180.00 minus a $50.00 manufacturer’s rebate. It takes only a couple of seconds longer to print a 4×6 color photo than the D7560, and costs about 5 cents less. This one performs better for text than for photos with a rating of excellent in this category. It puts out almost nine and a half pages per min. for about 1.9 cents per page. In addition, if the name doesn’t make it clear, it has wireless capability.

     * Third on the list is the HP Photosmart D5460. This particular model is only rated as ‘good’ in the text document criteria. It is slower than both of the others at 5.7 pages per minute and a cost close to the D7560 per page. For photos, however, this printer is excellent it takes just under a minute and a half to render a high quality 4×6 at a cost of 35 cents.

Multi-Function (All-in One) Printers-Ink-jets

Costs per photo and for text documents include ink and paper. Prices of printers are for new machines.

The main difference between these and the basic ink-jets is that the all-in-one’s, as the name indicates, offer additional features besides printing. Most feature all of these capabilities in addition to printing: copying, scanning, and faxing-although some all-in-one’s do not offer fax capability. Faxing is included in all of the three below. The HP and the Epson offer wireless capability.

    * The top spot here goes to Canon. At the end of December 2009 the winner was the Canon Pixma MX7600. Since then a newer model has emerged that could overtake it in the 2010 reviews. It is the Canon Pixma MX860. Since they are very similar and are both made by Canon, I will use the confirmed data from the MX7600. It ranges in price from around $265.00 to $370.00. It has a very good score for photo quality and an excellent score for text documents. It takes just about a minute to print a 4×6 photo at a cost of 35cents. It prints almost 8 pages per minute at a cost of 4.2 cents per page for text documents.

     * Once again, the second spot goes to HP. It is the simply named the HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One. It retails for $299.00 minus a $30.00 rebate from HP. Like the Canon, the photo quality is very good, but it takes about 40 seconds longer to print the same photo. The cost is about the same. As far as text goes, it also does a very good job; it prints six and half pages in a minute at slightly less than 4 cents per page. A newer version for 2010 is the HP Officejet Pro 8500.

 
    * Still another manufacturer, Epson, claims the third spot with its Artisan 800. It has been replaced with a newer version, the Artisan 810 for 2010. Once again, I don’t have substantiated ratings for that one yet. The Artisan 800 has very good ratings for photos, and a good rating for text documents. Before it was discontinued in favor of the 810, it retailed at $300.00. It takes a minute and forty seconds to print the 4×6 photo, at a higher cost that the other two all-in-one’s at 50 cents per photo. It prints 7 pages per minute at 4.6 cents each.

Well there you have it. You can find much more information on these products by looking them up on the web. In addition, there is a wealth of information available on new models and laser printers. This is only a starting point. Be sure that you know what your printing needs are, and then do your homework before you buy. Happy hunting!

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