Imanage the IT facilities for a small Investment Management firm (AUM $200m). I am the head of Marketing. It works though as I utilise the services of an external IT support company for those fiddly little jobs but we can support most in-house problems immediately.
This is not just an HP thing, all of the major printer manufacturers are working to the same or similar business models.
Yes there is a large R&D cost to the development of printer inks etc, but they have all made back that money, as shown by the their annual accounts.
Having worked for one of the largest manufacturers, at a senior level, I can say that one of the reasons you pay so much for your inks is that there is an enormous amount of mark-up applied to this product range. I spent time on the presentation of data to prove this to country wide distributors and retail organisations across the world. You can pretty much give the printer away and still be in profit (including the cost of the printer) within 8/12 months, depending on how much printing the users do. This is where the chips etc., come into play. To make that profit they need to ensure you buy original ink cartridges and not copies/fakes/alternative supplies.
The available mark-up to a distributor/retailer is approximately 100%, although it is up to them and their existing business model if they take that level of profit. I have seen Eastern European distributors charging even more that 100% though so it is achievable.
This is obviously on top of the manufacturers profit margin of between 20%/40%. Hence, your printer ink is costing you a lot more than it possibly should.
A simple way of getting to the bottom of this is to always purchase the machine outright and avoid click contracts, which make you pay per page printed. This will ultimately cost you more in the long run.
Always ask for cost per page data, to allow you to compare the cost of a printer over the life of the printer. You will be amazed/shocked at the overall cost of that printer over a period of say 3/5 years. If you are told this information is not available then you are being lied to as this information is supplied by all manufacturers to the distributor/retailer. How do you think they work out their break-even point when developing selling strategies. If they are not keen for you to see this data then you can find it on the internet. I would also question the honesty of a supplier who hides this info, do you really want to do business with a dishonest company?
The only thing that will bring down printer ink prices is public pressure, that pressure in part comes from awareness of the fact that you are being ripped-off.
Slashdot Mirror
Imanage the IT facilities for a small Investment Management firm (AUM $200m). I am the head of Marketing. It works though as I utilise the services of an external IT support company for those fiddly little jobs but we can support most in-house problems immediately.
This is not just an HP thing, all of the major printer manufacturers are working to the same or similar business models.
Yes there is a large R&D cost to the development of printer inks etc, but they have all made back that money, as shown by the their annual accounts.
Having worked for one of the largest manufacturers, at a senior level, I can say that one of the reasons you pay so much for your inks is that there is an enormous amount of mark-up applied to this product range. I spent time on the presentation of data to prove this to country wide distributors and retail organisations across the world. You can pretty much give the printer away and still be in profit (including the cost of the printer) within 8/12 months, depending on how much printing the users do. This is where the chips etc., come into play. To make that profit they need to ensure you buy original ink cartridges and not copies/fakes/alternative supplies.
The available mark-up to a distributor/retailer is approximately 100%, although it is up to them and their existing business model if they take that level of profit. I have seen Eastern European distributors charging even more that 100% though so it is achievable.
This is obviously on top of the manufacturers profit margin of between 20%/40%. Hence, your printer ink is costing you a lot more than it possibly should.
A simple way of getting to the bottom of this is to always purchase the machine outright and avoid click contracts, which make you pay per page printed. This will ultimately cost you more in the long run.
Always ask for cost per page data, to allow you to compare the cost of a printer over the life of the printer. You will be amazed/shocked at the overall cost of that printer over a period of say 3/5 years. If you are told this information is not available then you are being lied to as this information is supplied by all manufacturers to the distributor/retailer. How do you think they work out their break-even point when developing selling strategies. If they are not keen for you to see this data then you can find it on the internet. I would also question the honesty of a supplier who hides this info, do you really want to do business with a dishonest company?
The only thing that will bring down printer ink prices is public pressure, that pressure in part comes from awareness of the fact that you are being ripped-off.