Merchant West launches Price Tag to manage office equipment

Merchant West also advocates the separation of the roles played by equipment suppliers and financiers, eliminating all hold that the supplier may have over the business. This ensures that the consumer is not penalised when upgrading to different brands or seen by suppliers as a means to making additional margins through outrageous rentals or inflated settlements. The resulting transparency ensures market-related pricing from the supplier and competitive interest rates from the financier.

Lack of transparency

"Many companies spend thousands of rands on the hire of multifunctional printers and copiers, but the contracts and related costs are never fully verified making it difficult for the company to recognise whether or not they are getting a fair deal," says Sabine Stevens, a director of Merchant West. "Given the lack of transparency and inaccessible data around the cost of this equipment, the company has no other option but to take the supplier's word for it."

Merchant West has leveraged its experience in the industry and knowledge of available brands to collate a comprehensive list of multifunctional printer and copier prices and related contract costing structures available in South Africa. For a sense of what Price Tag is capable of consumers can register and log on to the website and make use of four tools to give them the information needed to make the right decision about office automation agreements into which they will be tied for the foreseeable future. Although online access is limited a full audit can be arranged through Merchant West.

The tools available are price verification on new equipment; pricing analysis on existing equipment; settlement computation; and rental calculator.