John Georgiou started heat press sublimation printing in South Africa 20 years ago after spending five years in the electronics industry – and he did so against all odds.
He had no help from his previous sublimation equipment vendor prior to working with Ricoh, the country manager for which infamously told him one day: “There is no such thing as sublimation printing.” The vendor was happy to sell him the equipment but refused thereafter to honour the warranties as Georgiou was forced to modify the equipment to accept sublimation inks.
Georgiou was jury-rigging the kit so that he could offer a unique product. But he experienced tremendous technical difficulties in the process.
“There are very few printer brands that can handle sublimation inks because of the way the print heads and ink delivery mechanisms function,” he says. “One of the biggest issues is that many brands use refillable cartridges or bulk
feed systems that results in finicky and inconsistent performance. Only the sealed cartridges work reliably,” he says.
Georgiou’s intense inquisitiveness led him to investigate alternative options. He had formed a relationship with Nashua in the late 1990s and contacted the then MD, who put him in touch with Ricoh SA, where he found a vendor happy to supply equipment for modification with warranties intact.
Georgiou five years ago left the business of supplying printed sublimation products and is now in the business of supplying sublimation printers and consumables to the market as a Ricoh SA reseller. “Making the switch to Ricoh has reduced the number of faults my customers experience, from anywhere between 50 and 100 a month to just 5,” he says.
“The new Ricoh models are amazing. They’re smaller so you’d expect them to be more delicate but they’re not – they’re sturdier and more capable than previous models. As office Geljet printers, used for invoicing and the like, I’ve had other brand printers promise to achieve 100 000 clicks before requiring maintenance and repairs yet they often fail at 10 000. Yet I’ve had Ricoh SG3110s running upwards of 150 000 clicks. That’s a huge benefit to my business and now my customers’ businesses. The number of technical issues on other brands of equipment compared with this Ricoh kit is such an important factor that I promote it as a USP on my website and in my printed catalogue.”
Mediocrity does not factor into Georgiou’s business. “We used to have [printer brand name withheld] parties. We’d offer refunds for guys who returned those faulty printers then we’d take them up on the roof and toss them off to smash them. We also offered incentives for people who destroyed the printers themselves and sent us photographs,” he says. “We’ve seen them driven over by cars, beaten to death with hammers and ripped apart. That’s how strongly I’ve felt about the poor relationship that vendor developed with me.”
Georgiou’s approach may be a little unorthodox but he’s driven by his brass tacks approach – which means making sure he delivers what works. “These Ricoh devices make money for me, they make money for my customers by not going down, they’re practically bulletproof. The only failures we’ve had are when printers are left unused for months on end, are used with cheap non-supported inks or become infested with roaches at the customer’s premises – and you can’t blame roaches on the vendor. Those things would survive nuclear fallout.”
He says that the Ricoh equipment is not the cheapest on the market. “Like my courier service provider I have a good relationship with Ricoh because they deliver the service that I need, and that my customers need, to ensure we can make money. I have courier companies offering to reduce my costs by 30% but they don’t get it. I don’t need a cheap courier company.
“I do, however, need a courier company that’s going to deliver the parcels, packages and equipment on time, without breaking anything. That’s worth money to me. Ricoh gives me the product I need on time, it’s good quality, they hold stock for me, they offer a good warranty and they make sure I’m not pushed out of the market by grey market resellers.” And the proof of the pudding is in the eating. He’s shifting 50% more kit than he did when he first made the switch to Ricoh.