On a roll with receipts

Annette Tarlton, Marketing Director, Star Micronics EMEA

Retailers face new challenges in today’s retail environment with reducing IT costs and, at the same time, carbon footprint being at the top of the agenda. As speed, performance and reliability become ‘givens’, POS printers need to help reduce costs and be environmentally friendly, in addition to providing effective targeted customer communication.

Today, retailers need to be seen by their customers to have an environmental policy and many have to their credit. The cynical among us may say that this is just a marketing ploy. That said, many retailers believe that power consumption is the most environmentally damaging aspect of their IT hardware. However, most of the CO2 damage and indeed internal costs are generated from the sheer quantity of paper used for receipting.

Star Micronics has effectively addressed this with the TSP100 ECO, which provides retailers with a number of cost-saving features that can help use up to 70% less receipt paper, resulting in reduced paper costs, less frequent paper roll changes at the checkout as well as lower transportation and logistics costs.

The following cost-saving features are provided with the TSP100 ECO:

• Significant paper savings can be made by reducing the top and bottom margins on receipts. Traditional top margins range from 11mm to 16mm and while partial cut printers are the most popular low-cost printers today, normally they cannot achieve a lower margin. The TSP100 ECO is the only partial cut printer available that has a default 3mm margin saving paper with every receipt.

• The ‘receipt on demand’ tool is unique to the TSP100 ECO and prompts the retailer to ask the customer whether a receipt is required. The receipt can then be either printed or cancelled. This function, which can be easily turned on and off, is ideal for low value, consumable items for which a receipt is often not sought by the customer.

• This printer offers the traditional facility to reduce the paper roll width from 80mm to 58mm, with a non-traditional in-built software solution. This feature is enhanced by Star being

the only manufacturer able to offer vertical as well as horizontal reduction. Using the TSP100 ECO software retailers can automatically reduce 58mm or 80mm wide receipts by 25% or 50% providing yet another effective paper saving tool.

Save your energy

The TSP100 ECO, which is Energy Star Compliant, is one of the first POS printers to fully address power consumption, as highlighted below:

• Unlike most POS printers that draw significant current when not printing, the TSP100 ECO has a unique power management system that means the printer will revert with the PC to a very low powered standby mode (0.05W) when not in use while ‘instantly’ waking up when required to print (29W).

As with all printers within the TSP100 futurePRNT series, the TSP100 ECO comes with all installation accessories included in the box. However, completing the ECO package Star has eliminated all polystyrene and replaced it with innovative cardboard packaging while the printer’s plastic case is made of halogen-free recyclable plastic.

Finally, there are no additional hardware costs given that the TSP100 ECO is priced at the same entry-level price as the basic TSP100U model as well as no additional maintenance costs and, for added reassurance, this printer comes with a four-year limited warranty including print head and cutter.

Not only faced with finding ways to reduce their costs but also a responsibility to be ‘green’ to their customers, retailers today need POS printing solutions that effectively respond to these challenges. All too often this results in compromises being made but as illustrated with the TSP100 ECO there are ‘green’ solutions available today that mean there are no compromises with cost or the environment.