Printer ink
- Thread starter silverdale
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UltimaXtreme
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I work in office supplies and can tell you, there's too many goofy things with this industry.
#1: Printers are sold at a "loss" and the full set of ink is anywhere between 1/5 to 1/2 the cost of the printer.
(I quote loss because it's still in the $200+ range if you're getting an Epson Workforce type printer, so there's still a hella cost.)
#2: They know they're gouging on the carts because you can spend a premium on tank models in which the bottles of ink are $60 total, but that still requires spending a minimum $300 on the printer, even more if you want basic amenities like the ADF or fax.
#3: HP and Brother are particularly offering subscription models for their printers, in which you are delivered new cartridges when you need it, and you pay a mere pittance based on how much you print. 100 sheets in a month for $5, and that's if you're comfortable with having an HP account and them counting your page frequency, if not what you are printing at that. And you can bet HP is doing some monitoring, as they offer e-Fax where you scan a doc with your phone and then you let HP fax it for you.
That last one's tricky too, cuz HP's ink subscript may be $5 for 100 here, $12 for 300 there, but what if you go over that amount? They charge you $1 per 10 pages.
Now, that's admitted all American perspective, I don't know HP's international operations, but they're clearly pricing up on things. And you know it's a gyp when the same $189 printer's ink cartridge 4PK is $77, but they can send you those carts as low as $3 for 50 pages. What's the aim here, is there even any profit to derive giving the ink away like that? Obviously it's data collection. What isn't a free or discounted service without that?
#1: Printers are sold at a "loss" and the full set of ink is anywhere between 1/5 to 1/2 the cost of the printer.
(I quote loss because it's still in the $200+ range if you're getting an Epson Workforce type printer, so there's still a hella cost.)
#2: They know they're gouging on the carts because you can spend a premium on tank models in which the bottles of ink are $60 total, but that still requires spending a minimum $300 on the printer, even more if you want basic amenities like the ADF or fax.
#3: HP and Brother are particularly offering subscription models for their printers, in which you are delivered new cartridges when you need it, and you pay a mere pittance based on how much you print. 100 sheets in a month for $5, and that's if you're comfortable with having an HP account and them counting your page frequency, if not what you are printing at that. And you can bet HP is doing some monitoring, as they offer e-Fax where you scan a doc with your phone and then you let HP fax it for you.
That last one's tricky too, cuz HP's ink subscript may be $5 for 100 here, $12 for 300 there, but what if you go over that amount? They charge you $1 per 10 pages.
Now, that's admitted all American perspective, I don't know HP's international operations, but they're clearly pricing up on things. And you know it's a gyp when the same $189 printer's ink cartridge 4PK is $77, but they can send you those carts as low as $3 for 50 pages. What's the aim here, is there even any profit to derive giving the ink away like that? Obviously it's data collection. What isn't a free or discounted service without that?
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