Any business owner worth their salt knows that shredding confidential documents plays an essential part in protecting their company from identity theft and data breaches. With this information in hand, you can confidently shop for a commercial shredder.
Before purchasing a paper shredder, it is crucial to familiarise yourself with its features, specifications, and performance. Get to know your shredder so you won't be let down in the future. If you need to shred a lot of paper at work, you probably don't want to buy a shredder that overheats after two minutes or can't process more than three sheets at a time.
Features to Consider When Choosing a Shredder
Deciding what paper shredders for sale will work best for your needs depends on several factors, such as:
- The rate and capacity of shredding
- Scale of security and amount of shred
- Energy efficiency, noise level
- Prolonged use and maintenance needs
- Extra safety features, auto-feed, and jam avoidance technology
Since not only paper but also multimedia files are in danger, you'll need a shredder that can handle both types of files. It may be argued that media shredding is even more important today. Get a shredder that can handle both tasks, or at least one of them. Be sure the shredder can handle tiny items like paper clips and pay attention to its "feet per minute" while shopping for one.
Popular Shredder Brands
What brand of paper shredder for sale should you choose? There isn't a single ideal brand. Some companies excel at producing small, home-use shredders, some at crafting high-quality models for use in offices, and yet others at producing robust, commercial-grade models.
Some popular brands that offer shredders for sale are, Fellows & Beswick, Ideal, JBF, Kobra, New United, and Rexel Auto+.
Types of Paper Shredders
Not all paper shredders for sale produce the same cut. That is to say, various shredders produce different particle sizes. Therefore, in order to distinguish between them, paper shredders are classified into three types:
- Strip-cut
- Crosscut
- Micro-cut
- Strip-cut shredder
Strip-cut shredders are your basic paper shredders for sale, where the paper is cut into strips. While it's better than dumping an intact piece of paper in a trash can, strip shreds still don't provide enough protection. For non-critical documents like supermarket receipts or personal correspondence that do not include sensitive information, a strip-shredder might be the way to go. They offer a low level of security, at approximately 39 strips per shredded A4 document. The security level lies at levels 1 and 2.
Cross-cut shredder
A cross-cut shredder is a paper shredder for shredding confidential documents. It shreds paper diagonally from both corners into short particles that are barely readable. This kind of shredder offers security at levels 3 and 4 and cuts approximately 400 particles per A4 shredded document.
Micro-cut shredder
Micro-cut or chip-cut shredders are the standard for handling sensitive, highly confidential documents. It shreds paper diagonally from both corners into square-shaped particles that are almost unreadable. The mess left behind after shredding is far more manageable than other home-office shred types.
The security level is rated at level 5, and it shreds approximately 3,700 particles per A4 shredded document.
In conclusion, the cross-cut or micro-cut shredder would be the recommended paper shredders to purchase if you want to shred confidential documents, such as bank statements and ID copies to prevent identity theft as well as multimedia files to prevent confidential information from being leaked out and safeguard your secrets. This kind of paper shredder will keep your confidentiality intact.