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Our new website is all about you

Yes, we’ve been working really, really hard behind the scenes to bring you a brand new BrandPost website. But our key motivation in doing this, is to make your shopping experience so much easier.

For example, even though BrandPost offers a wide range of products, a core offering revolves around printer inks and toners. And when you dive into the complexities of matching cartridges to printers etc. you really do need some good search tools to help.

With all of this in mind, the ‘Search’ function in our new site is geared to take you straight to what you want if you enter the right reference. Or, you can use the ‘Catalogue’ menu to click and follow your categories. Or, you can click and follow categories using the range sliders on selected pages.

And if you’re a current customer, your own ‘account’ area (behind the ‘Log in’) carries a record of your past purchases and a ‘re-order’ function to make things very easy indeed for getting replacements.

In all, we invite you to spend time to familiarize yourself with the new site… and to bookmark it for quick and easy processing of your orders.

Having said all this, please don’t forget that BrandPost have a stunningly good Call-Centre. Even though the website is now geared to be more helpful than ever before, we still want to hear from you – even if it’s just to say hi!

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Buying a new printer – consider the economics.

Because we spend a lot of time talking with customers from all over the country, some issues pop-up time and time again. So here we share some of our wisdom.

When thinking about buying a new printer – The general rule is that the cheaper the purchase price of the printer, the more expensive its consumables. This opens a discussion on a number of levels, so let’s look at a few of the issues.

– It’s possible to buy a printer for $50, then spend $60 buying ink cartridges. In the mix will be the idea of only using ‘original’ (rather than ‘compatible’) ink or toner to validate the warranty on the printer. While the figures may differ, this dilemma is common.

We encourage customers to take a practical look at the economics of their printing. And to make assessments based on use over time. Before buying a printer, look at the cost of ‘original’ vs ‘compatible’ consumables and the printing efficiency of the printer being considered – does that cheap printer purchase price really stack up?

Our BrandPost team is more than happy to help, even if it means pointing you in the direction of a product we don’t stock – we’re pretty clued-up on what works well and what doesn’t. Just ask.

On the subject of ‘original’ vs ‘compatible’ consumables… ‘compatibles’ can be a perfectly good alternative, as long as they’re from a reputable supplier. In our case, the ‘InkPost’ range is right up there for quality and reliability… while saving you money.

At BrandPost, all the printers we stock have been carefully assessed for cost-effective performance. And they’re brands you can have confidence in, but it’s best you get in touch with our Call-Centre and we can help you to navigate the details.

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Calculating your printer usage.

When printer manufacturers make calculations on their ‘page yield’ (the degree of pigment applied to a typical page of content), they tend to adopt 5% as a guide. Often this leaves customers under estimating the durability of their consumables… which is why we here at BrandPost gear things around a 10% calculation. In our experience this is more in step with how customers actually use their printers, and so better helps customers manage their day-to-day work.

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Things to know about ink and toner cartridges – are you really getting all you think you are?

Cartridges come in many shapes and sizes, depending on your printer etc. And different brands have different ways of managing their products across their range. In some cases the terms: Standard / XL / XXL are used to describe cartridges. While the physical appearance of the cartridge may look the same, the volume of ink or toner within it varies. So you need to think about what volume of pigment really does fit your usage, verses the cost of that purchase.

Typically we encourage the use of XXL products, particularly for ‘black’ pigment applications. That’s why BrandPost works hardest to minimize the cost of larger volume products, because they’ll deliver more value to customers in the long-run.

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Useful printer tips, tricks and thoughts.

Some of these helpful tips and tricks you may know, others may be new.

  • If you have a colour printer, make it a practice to print draft copies in ‘black’ only – or use a ‘greyscale’ setting. While there will always be a slight usage from other color cartridges anyway, this habit will ultimately reduce your use of pigment and related cost over time.
  • Your printer doesn’t know how much pigment is actually in your cartridges. If there’s a gauge of any kind, it’s based on a calculation on page numbers. The only true guide is the quality of the actual printed sheet. With this in mind, it may be worth turning your printer off, removing all cartridges, re-setting the page counter, then re-loading your cartridges. Having said this, it’s always prudent to carry a spare set of cartridges to cover you for when they eventually run out.
  • In the case of ‘toner’ cartridges, the practice of removing the cartridge and giving it a side-to-side shake will help to re-distribute the toner within the cartridge. Ultimately this helps all toner to be used, rather than to have valuable residues discarded.
  • Make a realistic judgement on your printing use. If you predominantly print text documents, maybe a small mono-laser printer is all you need. In which case these come at a cheap purchase price, and while you might pay $60 for a ‘black’ cartridge, you’re likely to get more than 2.5 thousand pages printed per cartridge. In the long-run this could be very cost-effective.