Is Cartridge Refilling Dying?

[wilko]

Interesting Guardian article showing how printer manufacturers are being hit by declining printer and compatible cartridge sales. The more that printer manufacturers try to recoup their printer losses by shrinking ink cartridges and high costs, the more the public turn to purchasing compatible ink cartridges. However, to be fair, even if Canon, Epson etc halved the cost of their oem carts, I 'll bet that folks would still continue to buy compat carts at a lower cost.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/oct/02/printers-refillable-tanks-revolution-home-printing

Perhaps Epson has seen the light and is selling their new printers at a profit and hopefully purchasers will be able to refill the cartridges with non OEM ink once the included ink is used up.

Most people I know only print an occasional photo now but I'm sure there are still many of us who use our printers daily. However, as the article states, printer sales are in decline.

If Epson is successful with its new printers then surely Canon, Epson and HP will have to follow. That is unless they leave the lower end inkjet field, like Lexmark, and concentrate on high end inkjets and lasers.

Canon hasn't replaced its ip7250 for over 2 years and I wonder if this will be the last of it's kind?

I suppose I'm coming at this from a "glass half empty" perspective but I can't help but think that change is on its way.

 

[3dogs]

Interesting Guardian article showing how printer manufacturers are being hit by declining printer and compatible cartridge sales. The more that printer manufacturers try to recoup their printer losses by shrinking ink cartridges and high costs, the more the public turn to purchasing compatible ink cartridges. However, to be fair, even if Canon, Epson etc halved the cost of their oem carts, I 'll bet that folks would still continue to buy compat carts at a lower cost.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/oct/02/printers-refillable-tanks-revolution-home-printing

Perhaps Epson has seen the light and is selling their new printers at a profit and hopefully purchasers will be able to refill the cartridges with non OEM ink once the included ink is used up.

Most people I know only print an occasional photo now but I'm sure there are still many of us who use our printers daily. However, as the article states, printer sales are in decline.

If Epson is successful with its new printers then surely Canon, Epson and HP will have to follow. That is unless they leave the lower end inkjet field, like Lexmark, and concentrate on high end inkjets and lasers.

Canon hasn't replaced its ip7250 for over 2 years and I wonder if this will be the last of it's kind?

I suppose I'm coming at this from a "glass half empty" perspective but I can't help but think that change is on its way.

I think there is a lot of confusing misinformation out there, and would take anything from the media as having been sourced from the nether regions.

Lets get some clarity to stay on target with this thread:

The inkjet market as I see it comprises,
multifunction, home, consumer printers.
Dedicated basic printers primary use Photo reproduction in homes/small opportunity business
Dedicated printers wide format home/home business
Dedicated printers wide format Professional Photography
Dedicated printers wide format all other commercial applications
Other

Next lets get a FACT on the table.
At the current retail price around the globe, using activity based costing, Printer Manufacturers are making a very healthy profit right through the supply chain on their printers, it is their corrupted (not corrupt), skewed accounting practices, based in Tax Minimisation that companies use to smokescreen their actual performance by category and move funds around the globe that causes issues, distorts facts and is inevitably victim to internal Corporate politics, and degradation.

Next FACT there are a finite number of consumers ( by category above) for those products. Consumer sentiment, and behaviours is a fickle thing, Raping consumers on ink pricing has driven consumers that would otherwise remained inert to action. That action is evidently having unexpected ramifications in the Printer Industry, as it has had with cameras, where the over production of new release, new model is killing the manufacturers with development costs, that are slid by Corporate sleezes into other segments of their Company so they don't look bad.

Consumer TRUST is gone, and the Marketers have done it to themselves, aided in part by the accessibility of SHARING.
Looking at the market that I would assume to be the biggest, that is Multifunction, Home, Consumer
the idea of sharing was driven by , not the availability of this method but by the cost benefit. Smartphone for many is good enough and portable, For the home one can purchase a Digital frame and store, display hundreds of Happy Snaps for less than the replacement cost of the Carts. It is my belief if the cost imperative had been avoided, the uptake of SHARE would have been limited, and adopted by, and almost confined to savvy kids for quite a while longer.

Its too bloody late for Epson to try to FORCE me to buy a 3880 style printer that has onboard ink storage, if it has to be Epson ink at ridiculous dollars per Ml.

I will hang onto my ink, carts, and 3880 till it won't print anymore then switch to digital, by then there will be A3,and A2 digi frames with AMAZING resolution.
BRING IT ON Mr, Canon and Epson you have "p'd" me off, so cop what my kick feels like while you fold your business too. Someone with a different name WILL step in and take your place!

Note This is NOT a RANT, I am quite calm, very cool and exceptional laid back about this all
This is an academic analysis of the FACTS that I have at my disposal from various published resources and a career in Manufacturing Purchasing.

 

[wilko]

I take your point but their is something magical about printing. Ever since my dot matrix I've loved the wonder of printing to paper. I hope you're right about a new company taking over from the established printer companies.

The golden years were when printers didn't have chips. Then the printer manufacturers introduced chips. Not content with this they then brought in reduced capacity cartridges.

I hope you're right about some other company taking over the home consumer market.

I agree with you that these companies don't deserve our support and I wonder what it would cost Canon, for example, to produce a basic home printer like the ip4000 to sell at a profit?

Anyone who buys OEM chipped carts is mad (Amateur or pro) and Printer companies know this.

If printer manufacturers have any sense they must try to make their profit on printer sales rather than replaceable oem carts

 

[3dogs]

Refilling, for me is like taking the final step in taking ownership of a persons photographic endeavours. Selecting the inks which which you plan to print. The print process is to me is like selecting a pallet of paints, be they watercolour or oil, choosing brushes and paper, stretching canvas and making something come to life with your own hands where you control all parts, so the outcome is as unique as it can be.

But refilling for our segment of the market, the photo printer, Enthusiast to Studio, would I suspect be a small segment of the market. Our salvation is in the likes of Canon, as they have a natural Horizontal slice linking Camera,Printer and paper. Seiko Epson is another thing, where the printer arm is but one of many, and may not be considered 'core' business.

The infrastructure is there and already paid for many times over, believe me. Printing would have been a cash cow for any Corporate in the recent past, but the GFC would/ has altered the dynamic.

I currently work for a Company that was a cash cow, spun off by a Corporate into the arms of an investor looking to grow his core business, so I see the pattern of stripping and concealment.

So, like record platters, the cart will pass perhaps, only to return in the future after we find that Digital was not all that it is cracked up to be after all. That the purity is just too much, and the flaws are what makes the process so rich and rewarding.

PS
Some Automotive Engineers published a report in the 70's related to GM Holden. As I remember the PRICE of a Holden (General Motors) at the time was about $16,000 Aust Dollars. They priced a car made from the Purchase of spare parts at Retail, and also at the cost that GM actually paid for the parts. The parts car was something silly like $60,000 and the paid price was $2000!!
Manufacturers get Tax concessions, and write off the infrastructure cost over time... Just think on how long the Main players have been at it, and where they Manufacture.

My guess is Savvy Printer Manufacturers would be exploiting those opportunities to the max.

 

[Emulator]

The next thing will be buying printers as a bag of parts - build your own - and save 80% of the cost.

 

[Smile]

Company wanting to profit from printer sales should put back the mechanical parts now removed to make printers disposable items only rated for 4000 A4 sheets total for printhead and printer, while HP Deskjet940 was rated at 1000 A4 pages per month.

When you see that HP Deskjet940 has integrated nozzles then you wonder why the heads last that long? And non integrated Canon i350 only 4000 prints?

 

[The Hat]

I reckon the answer to all our predicaments regarding the future availability of suitable and useable printers for refilling is to stock up on them now, as some of our wiser members have done already.

Find one or two printers that you particularly like and collect at least three spare print heads and you’ll be set for life, well at least that way you’ll be immune from what the printer manufactures are liable to do with the current and future markets.

With one in use and two as backups, you can safely print for the next 10 to 15 years, because the only part that’s liable to need replacing in that time period will be the print head, which you have plenty of.

It makes perfect sense to do it now if that passion to print at home is very strong and you wish to retain that freedom for the foreseeable future, the only down side on this idea is storage space, because most of these printers tend to be huge..

 

[Smile]

I reckon the answer to all our predicaments regarding the future availability of suitable and useable printers for refilling is to stock up on them now, as some of our wiser members have done already.

Well the stoking up is great idea if Pro series or any Canon/EPSON printer with metal shaft linear guide for printhead is used, if you see just some cheap bent sheet metal, then it's not worth stocking that model.

For todays users the only option is Canon Pro series, EPSON L series.

 

[3dogs]

The next thing will be buying printers as a bag of parts - build your own - and save 80% of the cost.

I am thinking that I may have been a bit unclear, buying spares resulted in a Retail cost of $60,000 odd just for the parts, still the labour cost to build to be added to that figure. On the other hand The price actually paid by the manufacturer was only $2,000, what made this a gross survey was that they had amortised in Labour @ current (then) wage rates.

 

[mswannie]

As one of the hmmm, older generation, I prefer to look at printed photos and even, gasp, to keep them in an album. We have just bought a new turntable to listen to all our vinyl, too.