HispanicBusiness

SPRING GROVE, IL -- (Marketwire) -- 12/04/12 -- Although President Obama's 2013 budget supports more than $16 billion in small business loan guarantees and tax cuts, one of the biggest problems small businesses are currently facing is weak sales, says the National Federation of Independent Businesses. So, with a new budget year right around the corner, many businesses are combating lackluster sales by reducing operating expenses.

A simple way to improve the bottom line is to reduce office supply spending, says Cartridge World. In fact, the company says businesses can cut office printing costs by 25 percent or more by making a few simple changes.

According to www.Reduce.org, the average office worker can use 10,000 sheets of paper every year.

"Considering there are more than 21,000 U.S. and Canadian firms with 500-plus employees, that's a huge volume of printing," says Tom McLaughlin, Marketing Director for Cartridge World North America. "There are three ways businesses can immediately reduce their printing costs. Reduce the number of pages printed. Reduce printer ink and toner expenses. Use the right printer."

With 600 stores in the United States and Canada, Cartridge World is the largest specialty retailer of ink and toner printer cartridges for the home and office. Each Cartridge World store serves hundreds of business customers and can provide cost-saving solutions:

1. Reduce paper use:

•Use duplex (two-sided) printing on all "draft" documents•Reduce margin areas on each page to print 10 percent more text



2. Reduce ink/toner printer cartridge cost:

•Purchase recycled / remanufactured printer cartridges instead of OEM to save 25 percent or more•Use high-capacity printer cartridges that provide cheaper per-page printing



3. Use the right printer:

•Low-cost printers may cost more in the long run. Confirm what kind of ink or toner cartridges they use first. •Check your printing volume. You might save by upgrading or downsizing your equipment.



PC World magazine may say it best, "If you buy a cheap inkjet printer, you're going to pay a small fortune for the ink to run it (assuming that you use the ink that its manufacturer specially designed for it)." If you buy a $100 inkjet printer and print 10,000 pages per year (40/day), you can use 23 standard ink cartridges per year. At a cost of $20 per cartridge, you'll pay $475 for black ink alone. In three years, you could pay 15 times the cost of the printer for ink. Plus, you could pay up to three times more if printing in full color.

Selecting the right printer to meet the demands for your office, and confirming the cost of replacement printer cartridges should determine what kind of printer to buy. When buying a color inkjet printer, opt for a printer with four separate color cartridges, not tricolor (three-colors-in-one) cartridges. With tricolor cartridges, as soon as one color is empty, you need to replace the entire cartridge.