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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Placitas, New Mexico, USA
    Posts
    41,486

    Default HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    I usually order ink cartridges for my HP printer through Costco or Amazon.

    But neither source had all four cartridges for my printer.

    So I ordered direct from HP.

    Even through I ordered all four cartridges at the same time, each one ships, via FedEx separately. I just received the yellow cartridge today.

    How insane is that?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    21,283

    Default Re: HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    in the uk at least printer ink is a very competitive market and the suppliers set score by mostly offering free next day delivery, in fact if you do not offer this for anything other than the rubbish end of the market I doubt you would be competitive; suppliers can source from more than one warehouse and so deliveries can be split to avoid delay; in fact amazon are as likely to do this as anyone in my experience

    and lets face it the profit margin on the printer makers genuine ink is high... for my brother a set of brother cartridges is around 90 GBP - I would not buy cheap, but I can buy very good compatible for 49 GBP -perfectly ok unless you need to be scrupulous about colour fidelity and long term lightfast
    -------------------------------
    Nothing lasts forever...

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Harwich, Essex, England
    Posts
    21,895

    Default Re: HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    I do bookeeping for a mates business. However during lockdown all his clients were lockeddown too so no need for invoices or printed copies of email etc. After 10 weeks of not printing, of course when I did go to print, ziltch.

    Ended up dumping a decent half full cartridge, buying a new one and a print head cleaning set (which worked wonders). Very expensive exercise. I have Thunderbird calendar remind me every Monday to print a test print now.
    Egg

    Intel i7 - 4790K Quad Core + 16 GB Ram + NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1660 Graphics Card + MSI Optix Mag321 Curv monitor
    + Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB SSD + 232 GB SSD + 250 GB SSD portable drive + ISP = BT + Web Hosting = TSO Host

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Placitas, New Mexico, USA
    Posts
    41,486

    Default Re: HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    With printer manufacturers the profit is in the ink. King Gillette who came up with the flat disposable razor blade had a marketing concept, Give them the razor, sell them the blades. Printer ink is very similar and you can buy a decent desktop printer for not a lot of money.

    I found this article that actually compares Gillette and HP http://mikeschubert.com/2011/10/05/g...em-the-blades/

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Harwich, Essex, England
    Posts
    21,895

    Default Re: HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    Yes, I've read that one before. What I find even more confusing is the auto resupply and x number of prints limit. Far to confusing for my tired old brain. Not going down that road.
    Egg

    Intel i7 - 4790K Quad Core + 16 GB Ram + NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1660 Graphics Card + MSI Optix Mag321 Curv monitor
    + Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB SSD + 232 GB SSD + 250 GB SSD portable drive + ISP = BT + Web Hosting = TSO Host

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
    Location
    Bracknell, UK
    Posts
    8,659

    Default Re: HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    ..and here am I buying ten cartridges for about $16, post included. LOL

    My daughter uses the HP auto cartridge ordering and is very happy with it.

    Don't worry, we don't have high fidelity printers or the need for high-quality prints - just mediocre consumer stuff.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Placitas, New Mexico, USA
    Posts
    41,486

    Default Re: HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    What I don't like about automatic ink is your printer communicates with your computer and theoretically, HP can see more than just when your ink is running low. The concept is a good one, especially from a marketing and sales point of view, but not good in terms of privacy. All these "smart" apps are collecting way too much personal information. And they all do it. Not that anything about my personal habits is all that interesting.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    21,283

    Default Re: HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    @egg - my printer wakes itself up and cleans heads itself once a week - I empathise, have been there, one of the reasons I don't use really cheap ink as I have been caught out twice [once too often ]

    @paul - glad this works for you, I don't advocate spending money if you don't need to, a risk-assessment thing

    incidently, if my printer locks not only will it not print, it will not scan; printing can nearly always wait but without a scanner I am in trouble
    -------------------------------
    Nothing lasts forever...

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    4,501

    Default Re: HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    I have an older HP printer and order cartridges through Ebay. Most come from the UK but even with postage prices can be very competitive.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Location
    Currently New York State
    Posts
    774

    Default Re: HP Ink Cartridges - How can they stay in business

    The cost of the ink was a reason I went away from HP for my work printer. I went with the Epson EcoTank series and really like it. With 4517 prints I am still on my first bottles of inks in the printer. Black and Cyan are still 1/4 tank and the other Magenta and yellow are still 1/2 full. This is after a year. The printer even came with an extra set of ink bottles that I have waiting on the shelf.

    Ray

 

 

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