Nothing is more stressful than trying to order supplies directly from Canon, Oce, Xerox, and other Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) only to find out that you're no longer an authorized reseller. You'd be surprised how many times we hear about this happening to service technicians, resellers, and print shops.

Gone are the days of no restriction product buying from any distributor you have a relationship. 

Now most genuine OEM toner, service parts, and other consumables you need to service your customer's wide format printer requires an authorization letter directly from the OEM. The problem is some OEMs have drastically reduced who they sell direct to and the qualifications to become a reseller are geared towards large service organizations.

So what happened? 

Well, the internet happened. Drop ship businesses were popping up everywhere to sell anything they could get their hands on. This caused a flood of competition who had little overhead due to the drop ship model. They could push prices down to almost cost without regard for gross profit. If a product didn't work out, then they'd move onto the next product line.  

This caused the OEMs to tighten up their reseller programs causing many to lose their reseller status. This cut off many independent service technicians from dealing directly with the OEM.

We looked at one OEM reseller application and was astonished on how restrictive their program was. They required applicants to have a store front, a set number of wide format printers on display, team of service technicians (not just a single person), and quarterly purchasing volumes. Obviously an experienced service technician who's branched out on their own could never satisfy these requirements.

What are my options?

You could find an OEM dealer that will sell direct to you, but you're probably not going to like their markup.

The other option is where Shop In Today comes in. We've been offering compatible toner and service parts for over 15 years. Our products have been used by service technicians, print shops, and end users for many years. The best part is our products are a fraction of the cost of the OEM.