A Multifunction Printer for Your Reselling Office: Is It Worth It?

Filing invoices, scanning return slips, occasionally printing a delivery note – alongside the label printer for shipping, there’s a second printing need in the background that’s easy to underestimate. For a long time we handled that through a copy shop around the corner. Long term, it turned out more of a hassle than we expected.

The point where a printer of your own pays off

Our rule of thumb: once you need to scan or copy something more than once or twice a week, the trip to the copy shop eats up more time than the device costs. For us, that point came once we switched to digital invoicing – suddenly supplier documents needed to be scanned and archived regularly.

What we looked for when buying

Wi-Fi was non-negotiable for us, since the printer shouldn’t be tied to the packing-desk computer alone but needs to be reachable from several devices in the office. Automatic duplex printing saves paper and time on double-sided documents. We ended up with the OfficeJet Pro Multifunction Printer – printing, scanning, and copying from one device, including Wi-Fi integration into the office network without extra software on every single computer.

A point many people underestimate: the paper

A multifunction printer is only as reliable as the paper running through it – anything too thin or moisture-sensitive causes regular paper jams for us, especially with duplex printing. Since switching consistently to OfficePaper A4 Copy Paper at 80g/m², that’s no longer an issue.

Our verdict after six months

For occasional printing, the purchase doesn’t pay off – a copy shop or a simple inkjet printer remains the cheaper option. But once scanning becomes a fixed part of your bookkeeping, a decent Wi-Fi multifunction device pays for itself, in our experience, within a few months of saved time.