At a local Business Breakfast Club we were asked for a quotation for a small colour multi-function machine.

We recommended a Canon product for around £200.00 + vat.

At the next weeks meeting the customer produced a Dell flyer with a similar product listed for £97.00 + vat and asked us why we where so expensive.

We asked the client for a rough estimate of his usage (total number of items printed, copied and faxes received) in one month, he conservatively  estimated his use as 500 documents (a ream of paper) per month. When we calculated his monthly usage times the cost of ink cartridges plus the cost of the  equipment. The Canon will cost him £1245.80 over the next 3 years, the Dell would have cost £2937.60 over 3 years