Thermal printers taking over in the retail sector

The South African retail market is maturing rapidly when it comes to embracing printing technology. One area where there has been a quantum shift over the past four years is in the move from the older dot matrix printers to new thermal printers, which are more affordable to run, offer more features, have a smaller footprint, allow for the customisation of receipts, and reduce queues at check-outs because of significantly increased printing speeds.

Regan Atkins, sales and marketing manager at local point-of-sale (POS) vendor, PC-PoS, said his company is witnessing this trend "on the ground" with its own client base.

"Since we introduced our Epson TMT 88 thermal printer four years ago we have seen thermal printer sales increase by 300% per year," he said.

PC-PoS, the South African subsidiary of international POS vendor, PC-PoS Inc, is the largest provider of ePOS equipment in SA - and one of the largest in southern Africa.

PC-PoS is the local distributor for Epson peripherals in SA.

"Retailers are migrating to thermal printers for a number of reasons. These include the fact that they are far faster than dot matrix printers and can print at speeds in excess of 27 lines per second. What this boils down to," he said, "is that customers` throughput at the point of sale is a lot quicker - and this is a major factor in terms of customer satisfaction in the retail sector."

Other factors considered by the retailer include the fact that thermal printers make very little noise - if any at all - thereby improving the overall ambiance in the trading environment. They also take up far less counter space at the point of sale than older dot matrix printers.

"Total cost of ownership is also a lot less because thermal printers come with less moving parts and no consumables - and therefore offer a far better Meant Time Before Failure (MTBF)."

He said Epson has just launched its Mark III thermal printer, its third-generation product in the thermal printer range. It comes with improved printer head technology, meaning it will boast an even longer MTBF.

"Because downtime is critical in the retail environment, this is the kind of printer technology that retailers are going to favour.

"Also, with some thermal printers, such as our Epson range, retailers can personalise their receipts, including being able to include their logos on print-outs. This goes a long way towards assisting with branding, an issue that is vitally important in the competitive retailing industry."