Editor’s Note: Reprographics shops face competition from other shops, FedEx Office locations, big box office stores, and other businesses. But some of the most sophisticated competition comes from regional and national chains of office technology providers, such as Gordon Flesch, DEX Imaging, Marco and UBEV. In upcoming issues of APDSP Today, we’ll provide an overview of each of these competitors. Click here to read the previous report about Gordon Flesch.
DEX Imaging is business equipment dealer with 50 locations, most of which are in the Southeast states, though it has a growing presence in Texas, two locations in Ohio, and one location in Utah. The company touts itself as the largest independent copier dealer in the United States, though since 2019 it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Staples Inc. The company’s promotions emphasize the fact that they have the buying power to get the best volume discounts from suppliers, and they’re not tied to any one particular supplier.
Business Growth
DEX is a relatively young company – it was founded in 2002 by Dan Doyle, who had founded Danka Business Systems in 1977. His son, Dan Doyle Jr., is the company’s CEO. When Staples bought the company 17 years after its founding, it kept the Doyles on the top of the org ladder. Click here to read an article about that acquisition.
The company has continued to grow via acquisitions since being acquired by Staples. Recent acquisitions include Hendricks Business Systems in North Carolina in November (click here for details); Meritech Inc. in Cleveland in September (click for details); and Gulf Business Systems in Sarasota, Florida in August (click for details).
Products, Service, Research
The company primarily deals Kyocera, Konica Minolta and Canon small-format copiers and MFPs. Large-format printers are not a major part of their business – searching for “large-format” on their website produces exactly one product, an HP DesignJet XL 3600.
Service is also an important part of DEX’s business. It touts regional warehouses stocked with parts – their site says, “When repair is needed, we maintain a cutting-edge network of pre-positioned parts and supplies, ready near you for fastest replacement.”
Dex also highlights its large team of techs. The website explains that it trains its technicians in-house, leading to the title of “DEXpert.” The company has earned the JD Power & Associates Award for Best Customer Experience and the ProTech Service award by Konica Minolta.
A definite company advantage is its investment in research. According to its website, the company opened an in-house R&D department called E-merge about a decade ago. The site says E-merge “… develops software, technology and hardware solutions to common customer print problems and has been awarded 13 patents for the technologies underlying our own PrintCounts™ and Patrol Print Appliance products.”
Community Involvement
DEX Imaging believes in deep community involvement. The company says that it donates one-third of its profits to organizations in the communities in which it has locations, which has totaled millions of dollars since its founding.
The company also sponsors a NASCAR race team, giving it a lot of exposure to fans of that motorsport.
Competing Against DEX
Large-format printer sales is not the focus the of the company, so it should be easy to compete against DEX in that category. Small-format is another story – their prices are probably hard to beat.
But service – including regular customer service and technical service – is an area where a well-run reprographics firm should be competitive against DEX. On DEX’s site is an amusing graphic showing its supposed advantages over other types of dealers (see the image at right), but if your repro firm is bigger than a “mom and pop” size firm, it’s not represented on the chart. And if you are a “mom and pop” shop, you’ll probably be surprised to see that the knowledge and guidance you provide to customers is only about 12 percent as good as that provided by DEX!
The technical service DEX offers is probably solid, especially with small-format, but the fact that they train in-house is not necessarily an advantage. It’s a stretch to say that in-house training is superior to certification training from a manufacturer.
View From an APDSP Member Who Competes
One APDSP member who competes with DEX indirectly offered views about that competition. The info is slightly sensitive, so it’s in the APDSP member site and it’s anonymous. To read the responses, please click here to log in, then click on the “Reports and Recorded Webinars” tab on the left; the DEX Imaging item is the top item.
Click here to read the previous report in this series about Gordon Flesch.