Online Connect UK remove rebranded photocopiers

April 21, 2010 - PRLog -- Online Connect UK a office equipment and document management supplier announced today the removal of rebranded photocopiers on there website. In a overview of there website it was felt rebranded photocopiers distorted the market and prevented consumer choice.

Vince Maurici of Online Connect UK explains:

"We want Online Connect UK to be one of the fastest ways to compare photocopiers and there key features. When we take a manufacturer like Ricoh for instance they offer there products under several names such as Rex Rotary, Gestener, Infotec. When you take a product range of 30 office photocopiers from Ricoh you actually end up with 90 duplicate products when you allow rebranding.

And Ricoh are not alone, Konica Minolta rebrand as Develop, Canon have rebranded as Selex, Kodak, Oce and HP in the past and Toshiba have in the past rebranded as Lanier. Rebranding is not an easy issue as it takes place throughout the industry and often relates to only a part of there product range as the case has been in the past with Kodak and Oce.
View Online Connect Colour Copiers - http://www.onlineconnect.co.uk/colour-photocopiers.html

Rebranding takes place in many industries and the office equipment industry is no different than your supermarket in many ways where a well known brand may manufacture the supermarkets own brand products. The problem for the consumer comes when trying to compare, with many products showing identical features. Rebranding often takes place where companies have reciprocal arrangements and sometimes the actual manufacturer may not be the most recognised  seller in that country so when choosing the primary representation for a machine model we had to factor that into our research. Canon for instance for years had a reciprocal arrangement for one of there colour printers/copiers with HP but most people thought HP were the manufacturer. In a case like this where both the manufacturer and the brand are so strong choosing the primary representation for the product proves difficult and for the moment both representations may exist.
View Online Connect Mono Copiers - http://www.onlineconnect.co.uk/mono-photocopiers.html  

What we have done is take a step towards genuine consumer choice by offering only the primary source of equipment where we identify rebranding when ever possible. We want the customer to get the widest diversity of equipment choice the simplest way possible. When they go to OnlineConnect.co.uk and try to compare photocopier machines having 5 duplications of the same model we felt confused the office buyer and made comparison between manufacturers difficult.

In all we have removed around 200 duplications so far and will continue to offer the primary manufacturer when possible. I must admit it took some convincing of our web-team that this was a good idea as understandably they did not want to remove products that they spent time researching and publishing but I believe firmly this is the correct way forward and will ultimately lead to greater competition and diversity within the industry."

Vince Maurici is the CEO of Online Connect UK, a document solution and office equipment supplier specialising in mono and colour photocopiers Visit http://www.onlineconnect.co.uk/

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Online Connect offer office equipment and document management goods and services throughout the UK. Offering a wide range of office technology including photocopiers, faxes, printers, shredders and multifunction scanners. http://www.onlineconnect.co.uk/