New York, NY -- A computer repair shop which now also includes an inkjet refilling service has just been featured in a local, New Jersey newspaper. The Princeton Press. The company is run by Chris Beyer, and is called Technician X. They have been refilling cartridges for about a year now in response to complaints from customers about the high prices of computer ink.
Beyer referred to the business practice of OEMs to sell printers for a reasonable cost, and then charge high prices for the ink as a “‘razor blade theory’”, and feels that by refilling cartridges for customers, that [Techician X] can “‘combat that kind of dishonest business pratice’”. Each refill at the shop retails for $10, which in many cases is cheaper than buying refilled ink. They also report a failure rate of about 1 in every 100 cartridges refilled. The purchase of the machine to refill the cartridges was a large investment, but one that Beyer feels is worth it. Details were not provided in the article as to the type of machine which Technician X uses.
Even though we ourselves sell remanufactured cartridges, “dishonest” may be too harsh a word used to describe the practice. We have talked to many different OEM companies over time, and it does appear to us that the businesses do invest a lot of time and effort into developing their inks. The ink prices are reflective of that investment as well as the types of ink that function best with the printers in question. We know that each person who buys a printer and ink for it has the option to choose whether to replace with OEM or non-OEM. Kodak has tried in recent years to undercut every other company by providing some initial lower-priced ink than its competitors, but there are questions about those “savings” as well.
To wrap up, in addition to the refilling service, Beyer also noted that Technician X would be moving into the areas of recycling cartridges and selling the recycled hardware in the future.
