With expansion in mind, Epson comes out with new product- LQ-50.

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Samba Moorthy - Senior General Manager - Sales & Marketing - Epson India speaks extensively with Jalaj Roy Choudhury on the latest product offerings of Epson, LQ-50.

Samba Moorthy - Senior General Manager - Sales & Marketing - Epson India speaks extensively with Jalaj Roy Choudhury on the latest product offerings of Epson, LQ-50.

Jalaj Roy Choudhury: Kindly shed some light on LQ-50, the latest printer launched by Epson?

Samba Moorthy: We have recently launched Epson LQ-50 bill printer, our latest and most compact serial impact dot matrix (SIDM) printer that is designed to help retailers produce high quality bills that impress customers in place of traditionally handwritten ones. This is especially important for industries where legibility is crucial - like the pharmaceutical trade where bills detailing batch codes and expiry dates must be clearly read and understood by customers. This printer comes with-in built 10 Indian languages.

JRC: What all technological advancements have you incorporated in this newly launched printer?

SM: There are many technological advancement incorpora

ted in this newly launched LQ-50 printer. These include as following.

Large paper width format - Offering an option to print on almost twice the size of conventional receipt papers, the Epson LQ-50 dot matrix bill printer enables users to print up to 6-inch wide fanfold papers with a print area that is five inches wide, allowing users to clearly print transaction details in a neat format.

Compact Design -The Epson LQ-50 measures 10.83 X 9.45 X 6.02 inches, weighs 3.3kg and is significantly smaller (30%) than other Epson SIDM printers.

Flexibility with Various Paper Formats - The Epson LQ-50 enables users to print on different paper types - fanfold and roll media. It supports fanfold paper for printing on fixed forms or company letterhead. Moreover, an optional fan-fold paper holder can be installed to hold the paper neatly under the printer without creating clutter. Alternatively, roll paper can be used when the optional roll paper holder i

s attached to the printer -this allows users to printing continuously without worrying about the length of the bill.

High Print Quality with Script Support for 10 Official Indian Languages - The Epson LQ-50 features a 24-pin print head which supports printing of the script of 10 pre-installed official Indian languages in high resolution via the Microsoft Windows OS driver.

Efficient Print Speed - To cater to fast paced retail environments, the bill printer can perform with outstanding print speed of up to 360 characters per second (cps) on high speed draft mode.

High Durability - The Epson LQ-50 is a robust dot matrix bill printer with extremely high durability with a Mean Print Volume between Failure (MVBF) rating of 20 million lines and Mean Time between Failure (MTBF) rating of 10,000 power on hours (POH). This makes the printer very reliable for heavy duty usage, especially in retail environments.

Energy Star Certified -

The Epson LQ-50 is Energy Star certified for low energy consumption which helps users to save power and cost in the long run.

JRC: These days printer vendors are switching to Wi-Fi platforms. Are you also planning something on the same lines?

SM:Epson already has Wi-Fi printers in consumer and corporate space, but there are no plans of incorporating Wi-Fi technology in retail printer Category as of now.

JRC: To what extent these new range of printers are power efficient?

SM: All the Epson printers are designed keeping power efficiency in mind and the Epson LQ-50 is Energy Star certified for low energy consumption which helps users to save power and cost in the long run.

JRC: What are the segments that you are targeting for your products?

SM: We are targeting the retail space which includes groceries, pharmacy, F&B, and apparel. In the non retail space, we are targeting departments

like transportation, insurance etc.

JRC: What is your strategy to take on competition from other players?

SM: Since LQ-50 is a unique product and first of its kind and there is no comparable product to this product in the Indian market, therefore the competition to this product automatically gets lessened. But in terms of other products, our strategy to take on the competition is straight-forward, we just leverage the products with our SIs and ISPs intensively.

JRC: How do you identify the challenges faced by the IT industry and design products accordingly?

SM: At Epson, we conduct rigorous research to understand the unique needs in each market and are committed to providing the best printing solutions possible. In the Indian retail environment, we saw the definite requirement for compact dot matrix bill printers that are as flexible and versatile as the Epson LQ-50 for printing of large-sized and multiple-copy bills

in pharmaceutical, F&B and retail outlets. This product is an outcome of our research of two years. Our research revealed that only 17% of the market is automated and rest 83% of the market is still using manual receipts. Based on these findings, this printer was accordingly designed.

JRC: How do you see the potential of Indian Market? Is the market saturated or wide open for new opportunities?

SM: The Indian market has a great potential and is definitely wide open for opportunities. It is estimated that annual retail establishments is 9 millions and only 17% of automation has taken place and it is further estimated that by the year 2020, 39% of the retailers will be automated.

JRC: How do you ensure partner\\\\\\\'s profitability?

SM: Since channel partners are the source of our prospect, we ensure their profitability by extending bandwidth of our products to them and also by organizing educational campaigns for the

l partners on optimum utilization of marketing resources.

JRC: Please brief about your warranty services?

SM: Epson gives a warranty of one year on manufacturing defects and to seek the warranty, a customer can call on our toll free number and register his complaint.

JRC: Are you planning to focus on B and C class cities?

SM: We are definitely focusing on B and C class cities as well. LQ-50 comes equipped with 10 Indian languages in built which are addressed for the rural market in India. We also want to automate the rural Indian market.

JRC: What are your future plans?

SM: We want to continue to expand with our current system Integrators strength and provide best possible solutions to our customers.