What are receipt printers?

A receipt printer as the name indicates is a small printer used to print customer receipts at the point of sale. Receipt printers are preferred by many business as they are affordable to buy and maintain. While a normal A4 printer can rake up thousands of shillings in toner and paper cost, a receipt printer only needs thermal receipt paper and electricity to run.

Types of receipt printers.

There are different types of receipt printers. To choose the right receipt printer for your business, consider how and where the receipt printer will be used. For instance, thermal receipt printers are more suitable for business that just need to produce one copy of a receipt for their customers. However in scenarios where two copies of a receipt are needed. A dot matrix printer is more suitable as it produces two copies of a receipt at one go.

Thermal Receipt Printers

This are the most commonly used printers at point of sale systems in kenya. 99% of supermarkets, chemists and other retail outlets use thermal receipt printers. They have a high printing speed and low maintenance cost as the only thing that needs to be replaced is the thermal roll.  The printer generates heat to generate characters on the thermal paper making for a quite high quality printing experience.

Dot Matrix Receipt Printers

Dot matrix are more suitable for use in hot environments such as kitchens. The special paper used by this printers does not turn black in the presence of heat as is the case with thermal papers. Dot matrix printers however use an ink ribbon which needs to be replaced at regular intervals. Their image quality is also not as clear as with thermal printers and they also produce more noise.

Inkjet receipt printers

Inkjet printers produce characters on a paper by squirting ink onto the paper. Inkjet printers require more maintenance and are prone to more errors as their ink nozzles often require cleaning to remove ink clots. However, this is not always the case. New better designed inkjet receipt printers from companies such as Epson clog less often especially when genuine ink is used with their printers.

Connectivity options for receipt printers

No matter the type of receipt printer you choose, you’ll need to consider the connectivity option to use. Connectivity refers to how the printer connects to your printer or data source from which the receipt to be printed comes from. Below are some of the connectivity options available.

1. Serial – Slower and more outdated, but an easy, inexpensive, classic option
2. Parallel – Can be slow, but is easy to connect to a circuit board and works well over short distances
3. USB – A modern, more expensive system, but more flexible and universally available
4. Ethernet – Capable of carrying signal long distances, but it is the most expensive option
5. Wireless – Enables mobile usage and doesn’t need wires, but you’ll need to think about network security
6. Bluetooth – Draws less power and cuts clutter, but has a short signal range and can be expensive