Epson builds Cebu depot to boost turnaround time

CEBU, Philippines - As Cebu is their second biggest market after Metro Manila, Epson Philippines is bolstering its local presence here with the creation of a depot warehouse and the conduct of market-wide seminar to update Cebuanos on the newest trends in the industry.

Renato Serrano Jr., head for Epson regional sales department, said in an interview that they consider Cebu as an important "growth area" in the Philippines.

"Recently, we established a sales office and warehouse depot here in Cebu to cover various segments of our operations and improve the turnaround time for the shipment of our products," Serrano said. The office is located at the North Reclamation Area.

Although Cebu has gone through major natural disasters recently, Serrano is optimistic this will not affect the appetite of  their Cebuano patrons.

"We believe that the market will keep its growing pace. The momentum will slightly go down in areas affected by the super typhoon, but definitely, for Western and Central Visayas, we are not seeing any major concern as far as sales turnouts are concerned," he said.

Epson's retail component in the country, according to Serrano, is very well surviving the competition, with its L-series printers generating a huge chunk of their revenues.

Confident that their retail performance will continue to stay within impressive levels, Serrano said more focus is now being given to their corporate consumers.

Last Monday, Epson's top officials were in Cebu to educate stakeholders from the academe, corporate and government sectors on the newest technology Epson is incorporating into its diverse lineup of products.

Major tech updates, Serrano continued, is a way of  presenting their products to their customers in a way that makes them understand the look and feel of their products even before they decide to purchase.

These tech updates, which are done across the Philippines in different venues, allow users to interact with Epson's offers. Tech update seminars also give consumers a chance to physically hold Epson products like projectors, scanners and POS machines that are not often on display in their retail outlets.

"Our focus now is not on the market share but more on the value share. We want our partners to enjoy higher margins or better products," Serrano said.

Aside from its wide assortment of  printing machines, Epson's product mix also includes projectors, peripherals and scanners ranging from entry level to midrange to interactive and high-end.

For the coming years, Serrano revealed Epson will be centering their efforts on boosting their ink-tank systems in the printer manufacturing business.

An ink-tank system, he said, is a feature that comes with the printer where a prebuilt tank, instead of a cartridge tray, is attached to the printer body. 

Serrano described the feature as efficient since it allows consumers to print more copies as compared to traditional methods which use cartridges, without having to compromise the print quality.

According to him, the market posed by the printer manufacturing industry is expected to grow in spite of the onset of other related technologies that compete with it. — (FREEMAN)