October 12, 2006

Your Printer. It's Cartridges. Your Money.

The cost of buying a printer is getting lower and lower. The functionality of printers is getting more and more. But what is expensive and the money maker for printer manufacturers is the print cartridges - be it laser or ink jet.

You can buy the printer cartridges from the printer vendor, you can buy off-brand cartridges, you can buy remanufactured cartridges or buy a kit that lets you refill the print cartridge.

The solution is to use premium inks for premium prints (for example photos that you want to last longer) and 3rd party ink cartridges for things that aren't that important.

Small Biz Resources writes But where there's a profit, there's somebody to try to grab a piece of it. In years past, a minority of consumers dead set on avoiding outrageous prices resorted to desperate measures, including purchasing third-party cartridges from online vendors. Another resource was the purchase and use of hypodermic-style needles to draw and inject ink into empty first-party cartridges.

Many of these alternatives were so technically difficult, inefficient, or defective that, with some notable exceptions, they remained under the radar of printer manufacturers. However, the last five years have seen the emergence of more mainstream third-party ink resellers such as Cartridge World and Rhinotek. By offering generic ink replacement at prices that cost as little as 30% of brand-name supplies, these third-party ink resellers have generated mass appeal with consumers who are sick of paying exorbitant prices for ink. Recognizing this, even major retailers like Staples and even Walgreens have begun to offer third-party ink as a more affordable replacement option.

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