For whatever reason this week it seems like almost every store has the exact same sale price for this printer. The usually means the manufacturer is giving companies extra incentives to sell the items or that they are being discontinued. Usually at times like these a lot of stores actually drop the at cost rate of the product in its systems. So that means an employee can get an even better discount.
With that in mind, if you have a friend that works in a particular industry that happens to be selling the item under these circumstances there is a high chance you can save a ton. For example, I remember there was a computer monitor where for most companies it cost them about $100 to purchase which they then markup to resell. So an employee of a business may pay like $110 whereas the general public would be say $150.
During a country wide promotion though the manufacturer would tell stores that they would give them a $30 spiff for selling the item. Funny enough, a lot of stores would reflect this by temporarily changing the cost of the item to like $70. So while the public price may be say close to the original employee price the employee price is even cheaper now.
You do have to check of course as if the company is selling it at a loss then there is no way the employee can get it for cheaper. However, I usually find this is a good indication for you to ask your buddy on just how cheap they can get it when you see country wide sales like this.