In recent years, reports have revealed that almost 20% of small businesses have gone paperless. Many of these companies have moved away from using small business printers.
If your small business falls into this category, you might not need to worry about buying a printer for small business purposes. But otherwise, you’re going to need to invest in the best small business printers money can buy.
So, what are some good small business printers? Well, the truth is that there are almost too many of them to count! It can make figuring out how to choose a printer for your small business a real chore.
Fortunately, there are many simple steps you can take to inch your way closer to finding the best small business printers. We’re going to break these steps down for you to make it easier for you to purchase the best printers for your company.
Continue reading to get some great tips on choosing the best printer for your small business.
Table of Contents
Begin by Thinking About How You’re Going to Use Small Business Printers
Before you start shopping around for small business printers, you should give serious thought to how you’re going to use them. This is going to play a big part in which printers you should invest in.
Are you going to use your small business printers to:
- Print out black and white invoices?
- Put together colorized pamphlets?
- Create large quantities of different forms?
There are some basic small business printers that will be perfect for those who just need them to print out the occasional invoice in black and white. There will be more advanced options that will be great for generating marketing materials in color. And then, there will be printers that can print out hundreds of pages in a very short period of time.
By identifying how you’ll utilize small business printers, you’ll put yourself in a much better position to track down the right options for your company.
Learn About the Different Types of Small Business Printers
Once you know how exactly you’re going to use the small business printers that you buy, you should spend some time learning about the different types of printers that’ll be available to you. You might be surprised to see how many kinds of printers there are for small businesses.
Some of the most popular types of small business printers are:
- Inkjet printers
- Laser printers
- Solid ink printers
- All-in-one printers
- LED printers
And this is only the beginning! More often than not, you and your small business will likely want to buy inkjet printers. They’re the most common types of printers found in small businesses.
But you’re more than welcome to mix and match the various types of printers that you use for your small business. You might find that one type will work well for one kind of project while another type will be a better fit for another kind of project.
Find Out Which Type of Ink Different Kinds of Small Business Printers Use
When you purchase small business printers, they’ll typically come with some kind of ink already in them. But once that ink is gone, it’s going to be your job to make sure you refill your printer so that it can continue to print.
With this in mind, you aren’t going to want to overlook the type of ink that is used in a printer. You should see how much that it’s going to cost you so that you don’t end up with a printer that only works with very expensive ink that goes fast.
You can visit Premiumtoners.com to see how much ink and toner will cost for the different business printers that are out there. You should look for ink or toner that isn’t going to break the bank and buy a printer that it goes in.
Check Out the Different Brands That Specialize in Selling Small Business Printers
The commercial printing market is said to be worth right around $400 billion right now. And it’s expected to be worth more than $450 billion within the next five years.
Because of this, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to hear that there are lots of different brands that manufacture small business printers. A few of the brands that you’ll find selling these printers will include:
- HP
- Canon
- Dell
- Brother
- IBM
- Ricoh
- Xerox
- Samsung
You should be able to trust a printer made by almost any of these companies. But even still, you’ll want to do your homework to ensure that you buy printers from a company that has a reputation for producing high-quality products.
You should also stay away from any printers that have been made by no-name companies that aren’t established within the industry. You aren’t going to have much confidence in these kinds of printers even if they seem to get the job done for you at first.
Consider the Costs Associated With Different Small Business Printers
As you shop for different kinds of small business printers, you’re going to notice that they come in a wide range of prices. You can find, say, inkjet printers for anywhere from $30 on the low end to well over $3,000 on the high end.
Your first instinct might be to snatch up all of the $30 small business printers you can find. But if you do that, you’ll quickly discover why they’re so cheap. They won’t print very fast, and they also won’t deliver the quality that you’re looking for in your printouts.
At the same time, your company might not need $3,000 small business printers, either. These printers might be capable of doing way more than you need them to do. They could hurt your bottom line without doing much in return for you.
Your best bet will often be to find a printer for your small business that falls somewhere in between these two extremes. You should also think about looking for any coupons, promo codes, etc., that you can find to bring your printer prices down even more.
You might even be able to score a great deal on small business printers by buying them in bulk. It would be worth exploring this option if you’re concerned about what printers might cost you.
See If You Can Test Out Different Small Business Printers
When you’re conducting an initial search for small business printers, you might be able to get away with doing it online. We would actually encourage you to work on narrowing down your options by looking around online and learning about all the printers that you find.
But when it comes time to pick out the printers that you want to buy, you shouldn’t be shy about trying to put them to the test. You should find somewhere to look at the printers in person so that you can see what they’re each capable of.
Every small business printer is going to look like it’ll be a fantastic fit online. But once you start playing around with different printers, you’ll see that some will produce better results than others. You’ll also see that some will be easier to use than others.
By taking printers out for a test drive, you’ll have a much easier time narrowing down the options that you have and honing in on the right printers for your company. You also won’t have to spend as much time figuring out how printers work when you’ve already experimented with them.
Inspect the Quality of the Printouts From Different Small Business Printers
If you aren’t going to be trying to pull off complex printing jobs with your small business printers, you might not need to be too worried about the quality of their printouts. Almost all printers will be able to print out things like black and white invoices with ease.
But if you already know that you’re going to need printers that can pull off complicated printing jobs, you should sneak a peek at the quality that printers can deliver when testing them out. You want their printouts to look amazing when they come out.
You should use the printers that you test out to print some of the things that you have in mind and look at the results. It’s another surefire way to separate the printers that will work wonders for your business versus the ones that won’t be able to keep up with your lofty demands.
Read Reviews for Some of the Small Business Printers You Like Best
In this day and age, you can find online reviews for just about anything that you might want to buy. From clothes to electronics to cars, there are reviews for everything.
It’s important for you to take full advantage of this when you’re buying small business printers. Once you have a list of the printers that you like the best, you should skim through as many online reviews for them as you can.
Online reviews can teach you so much about the printers that you’re interested in buying. They’ll reveal how reliable different printers are. They’ll also uncover any potential problems that might exist with printers.
You can even find out whether or not printers are worth the price that you’ll pay for them. You should be able to see which printers offer the most value by browsing through their online reviews.
Ideally, you want to choose to buy small business printers that have almost nothing but positive reviews from those who have purchased them in the past. There is no guarantee that you’re going to have a wonderful experience with these printers. But you’ll sleep better at night knowing that you went with printers that came highly recommended by others.
Search For Small Business Printers With Great Warranties on Them
No matter which printers you ultimately decide to buy for your small business, you’re going to begin pushing them to their limits almost right away. Your small business printers will get put through the wringer day in and day out.
As a result, there will likely come a time when something will go wrong with your printers. And you’ll want to have a warranty in place to ensure that you’re able to get your printers fixed without spending a small fortune on them.
You might not be all that concerned with what kind of warranties that printers have when you’re first buying them. You’ll be too focused on using printers to worry about what’s going to happen if something ever goes wrong with them.
But unless you get extremely lucky, you will have to replace parts in your printers eventually. So you’ll want to invest in small business printers that have you covered with warranties. You’ll be glad you did down the line when you’re calling a printer company to have them come and fix your printers for free.
Pick Out the Right Type of Printers for Your Small Business
Buying small business printers is going to call for you to make a big investment. So you should put plenty of time and thought into picking out the right type of printers for your company.
Keep everything that we’ve discussed here today in the back of your mind as you shop around for printers for your small business. These tips should make it easy for you to figure out how to choose a printer that you and your employees will love.
Would you like to get some more tips on purchasing business products? Find them by poking around on the rest of our blog.
