The printer ink market is pretty fierce these days. It’s not quite dog eat dog, but it’s pretty close. The reason for this is everybody and their brother is competing for your ink money. And when you add it up, the worldwide printer ink business runs into billions of dollars. The manufacturers of printers know their products are useless without the ink to run them on. This competition has led to the introduction of compatible ink. These are basically cartridges that can work with all types of brand name printers.
To understand the industry better, you need to realize that the large printer manufacturers are almost giving the printers away because of the low costs they charge. This, of course, isn’t by choice, it’s basically because the market is saturated with the devices and these prices are what the market will bear. The companies realize they may take a loss on the printing appliances, but realize they can make up for it with the high cost of replacement ink cartridges. This is the main reason they don’t want customers buying compatible ink. Most people will end up paying more for the ink than they did for the printer in the long run.
The cost of printers is generally pretty close between all manufacturers because they are relatively all the same. Sure, some printers may have a few extra features, but there’s only so much a printer can do. And unless they invent one that can cook you dinner, this probably isn’t going to change. But most customers can’t really tell one printer from another. And because the price of printers has generally been set and accepted around the world, it’s going to be very hard to introduce a printer at a much higher cost as they know consumers won’t pay it.
So, in reality, ink cartridges are the key to the printer game as printer ink cartridges need to be bought over and over again, and this is where the real money is made. This means the printers are sold so cheaply to allow the manufacturer to get their foot in your door. In fact, to do this, some companies even give printers away with other appliances such as computers. Once you have their brand of printer, they have a stranglehold on you as many companies’ printers won’t work on anything other than their brand’s original manufactured ink (OEM). These won’t be considered compatible ink cartridges because they won’t work with that brand of printer.
So if you want to keep using the printer you need to buy cartridges from the same manufacturer and this is why the price is so high. Manufacturers can charge higher prices because there was no alternative. Some manufacturers even tried to void warranties on printers if their customers used compatible ink cartridges in them. This is where the ink re-manufacturers enter the picture. These outlets have studied the technology of the original printer cartridges and can duplicate most of them. This means compatible ink can be bought at a cheaper price than OEMs.
The choice is yours. You may find the compatible cartridges to be of lower quality, but at least you have the option of choosing. And if you’re choosing an online retailer to buy your ink from, inkmart.com is a dependable place to start your search. Copyright © InkMart.com
