There are so many choices of printers on the market that it can sometimes make choosing the best printer for the business quite difficult. It is important that you approach buying a printer as you would with any other business purchase you make. The prices of printers can vary from just under £50 to over £6000 and all of those available to a business depend on the style, brand and type of printer - of course those at the higher price are useful for larger businesses although no small business should have to consider buying cheap. However price is not the only consideration when buying a printer for the office.

The important thing you need to consider when buying a printer for business is what it is going to be used for. Is the printer only for printing word and excel documents from a PC? How many documents will be printed every day, where only 100 print outs are considered minimal for large businesses but massive for smaller to medium sized offices?

If the company is printing hundreds of documents a day for 5 to 8 hours, then a laser printer for domestic market, from a high street retailer, will not be good enough as it will not be able to cope with the work and with hundreds of pages to print a commercial printer may be well thought out.

Will you use it for printing catalogues or images? For design, companies that need the images to be sharp then inkjet printers are one of the best options though cartridges and servicing can be pricey.

On the other hand, if you need to turnaround images quicker, but sharpness is not as vital, then a coloured laser printer is a preferred option as all round office equipment goes.

When choosing a printer for business, an additional consideration is the cost of cartridges - before selecting the cheapest printer available in store, check out the cost of cartridges that are available (with the most popular brands often being the most expensive). It's worth considering that many so called inexpensive or cheaper printers have relatively expensive cartridges as that is where the manufacturer makes their money, unfortunately for us. A cheap printer may not be the most cost effective printer for the business.

Is an all in one printer a good option? Well choosing a printer for your business is not the easiest task, and most are try after you buy however a point to make is that all-in-one printers are not always a good option for high-end users. Dedicated printers that are supplied and service by either a specialist office product supplier or a local hire company are good options.