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What is HP Small & Medium Business
HP is one of the largest technology companies founded in the year 1939 by two classmates Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. The company strives to supply small and medium businesses with high end products and solutions that can address their problems and achieve their dreams and aspirations.
The Laptops and Tablets section of the store serves customers with notebook PC’s and mobile workstations. Other sections available in the store include Desktops, Workstations, Calculators, Monitors & Signage and more. HP also provides a facility wherein customers can buy separate hardware to upgrade their system and avail full functional benefits.
The Accessories section is where customers can shop for supplies like ink, toner, paper and printing accessories. The section also provides amazing software solutions from HP as well as from other brands. Care Pack offered by the store protects customer’s investment by offering regular service and support.
HP Small & Medium Business Review
The equipment and accessories listed on HP Business page are those in which a small-to-medium-sized business owner might be most interested. This allows them to focus on these specific HP products instead of wasting valuable time browsing through the products that are designed more for the larger enterprise or that might be useful only for a home office.
Their website facilitates searches for a number of computer equipment categories, including:
- Laptops and tablets
- Desktops
- Workstations
- Monitors
- Accessories (ink, toners, paper)
- Printers, including multifunction printers
- Scanners and fax machines
- Storage devices
- Servers and blades
Is HP Small & Medium Business Worth It? – Key Features and Benefits
Here is what makes HP Small & Medium Business stand out among other computing, printing, and networking solutions
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Hewlett-Packard is a large, internationally known company. This provides small and medium-sized business owners with more confidence that the products that they purchase will be state-of-the-art.
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The website provides sidebars that allow the user to locate a product with the exact specifications that he or she wants. A business owner who wants to purchase a laptop is quickly able to find those that have the screen size, operating system, processor type, memory, internal storage, and graphics to match his needs, and in the business world, time is money.
- Hewlett-Packard offers low-rate financing and even has a leasing option. This could benefit the small-to-medium-sized business owner who is strapped for cash, but needs to upgrade his equipment.
A feature of the website that I particularly like is the one that allows you to compare several different items within the same product category. I can select different notebooks and view their specifications to determine if the extra money I might have to pay for one or another is worth it.
HP Small & Medium Business Cons – Disadvantages
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The print on some of the pages I pulled up was too miniscule to read. I had to zoom to 150% to be able to read it, and even then, it was none too large. One of the pages that this occurred on was the page that showed the items in my shopping cart. There was no way I could read the description of what I was purchasing as it was shown on that page. I had this issue on some of the other pages as well.
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The website seemed to be in need of debugging. I tried to click on two different PCs that were advertised to be on sale, and both times I was redirected to a page advertising a number of other products, including printers and storage systems, but with no mention of the PC on which I was trying to get more information.
- Similarly, when I clicked on the “Accessories” tab, a number of categories popped up, but when I tried to click on a couple of them, I got a “web page cannot be found” error message. A few hours later when I tried again, the page displayed correctly.
What Merchants Might Be Better Than HP Small & Medium Business?
Other firms that are in direct competition with HP in the small business supplies category are:
How Does HP Small & Medium Business Compare With Similar Merchants?
I looked at a couple of other websites that are in direct competition with Hewlett-Packard for the business of small-to-medium-sized firms. The first was Office Depot.
HP vs Office Depot
Office Depot offers a much greater variety of products and services for the small business owner than can be found on the Hewlett-Packard page. In addition to carrying computers and accessories from a number of manufacturers, including HP, Office Depot has office furniture, audio-visual supplies and equipment, and an array of papers, notebooks, file folders, among other things, that are needed to run a business smoothly. As on HP, I was able to narrow my search for a laptop by features such as screen size, processor, hard drive size, and memory, and I was able to compare the specs of the models I chose side-by-side.
The Office Depot website also has a business resource center where the businessman can access a phenomenal amount of free information, including a handbook on starting a business, tips for small businesses, and news about current legislation and how it might affect businesses.
Office Depot is partnered with VFinance.com®, which supplies loans to small businesses, and HR Powerhouse, which provides the business owner with unlimited online access to human resources information and advice. HP doesn’t offer any such informative materials on its website. HP does have low-cost financing options available for the purchase of its products, but it doesn’t provide any resources for small business loans per se.
Office Depot provides free next business day shipping on orders of $50 or more. HP’s shipping costs vary by the product.
HP vs Sam’s Club
The second merchant I researched was Sam’s Club. In order to make a purchase from any Sam’s Club brick and mortar store or its internet store, you are required to buy a membership. A basic business membership costs $35 a year. This allows you to shop in the stores as early as 7 A.M. on Mondays through Saturdays and to order ahead for next day pickup at the store.
Small Business Administration (SBA) loans are available to Sam’s Club Business members through Superior Financial Group in amounts ranging from $5,000 to $25,000.
Like Office Depot, Sam’s Club carries a much greater array of products than Hewlett-Packard. In fact, you can even find everything you need to host your next office party at Sam’s Club. Like both the Office Depot and HP websites, the user is provided with a sidebar to narrow his searches for many of its products. As was the case with the other two websites, I could choose to view only laptops with a certain screen size, price, processor, hard drive size, and/or memory, and I could compare different product specs side-by-side.
Although not to the extent that Office Depot does, the Sam’s Club website also has articles on topics of interest to the small business owner. Sam’s Club offers free standard shipping on online orders of its computers.
What Is the Cost at HP Small & Medium Business?
The prices vary greatly, even among products of the same line. One product might seem to be identical to another, but it can have a different product ID number and slightly different specs. For example, there are three product ID numbers stipulated for the HP EliteBook 2760p Tablet PC, and these three range in price from $1,409 to $1,679. When I compared the specs of the three, I found that the price differential appears to be due to two things: processor size and the wireless component. Prices on some other items are:
- HP Compaq 8200 Elite All-in-One PC, Product ID A2W55UT = $1,149
- HP 2600 Workstation, Product ID VA777UT = $1,729 (reduced from $2,235)
- HP OfficeJet 4500 All-In-One Printer, Product ID G510g = $79.99
- HP RDX Removable Disk Backup System, Product ID BV849A = $929
- HP Proliant ML100 Server = $669
- HP 58 Photo Inkjet Print Cartridge = $28.99
If these prices are too steep, you can opt for one of HP’s low-rate financing plans, which requires only that you complete a one-page application. Approval is given in minutes, according to the website. Alternatively, you can elect to lease your equipment from HP.
Ground shipping costs vary. To give you an idea of what they might cost you, the website provides an estimated shipping cost of $65 for a desktop PC and monitor and of $20 for a notebook computer. I could find no information on HP’s return policy on the website.
What Are Others Saying? Testimonials – Feedback – Comments
There are reviews for a few of the products on the HP website. These reviews tend to be significantly more positive than the reviews I found on external websites. And that is an understatement. The product complaints tended to focus on the HP computers. There were numerous reports of computers crashing and notebooks overheating. To say that these customers were irate when they called customer service is another understatement.
The complaints ranged from the inability to understand the person on the other end of the phone, to not being able to speak to a supervisor, to poor record keeping on the part of HP (customer service reps couldn’t determine the status of an order that had not been received, couldn’t find the information on a customer’s extended warranty, etc.).
Any Promotional Coupons for HM Small & Medium Business? How to Buy at a Discount
As affiliates of Small & Medium Business, we regularly check for coupon codes and promotional deals that work so that you will get the best prices. If there are any Small & Medium Business coupon codes or discounts available today you will find them at the top of this page.
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