Paying too much for your printer ink? – Here’s what you need and where to buy it

As a business owner, I soon came face to face with high printer ink prices. 

The people in my team needed to print things out, and my company was forever ordering ink cartridges. While printing was a business necessity, it was expensive. I was paying thousands of dollars per month just for ink. 

Surely, there was a better way? 

Paying Too Much For Printer Ink

I soon realized that I was paying too much for printer ink. The amount that my company was getting through was unsustainable. I needed more affordable options, and I needed them fast. 

The problem was that I didn’t have much choice. I’d already bought a printer, and I believed that I had to use the company’s ink. The printer company had a monopoly, and I was stuck. 

The problem that I had was actually very similar to that faced by many startups and other companies. I had bought an incredibly capable printer for the office, choosing something that could cope with a lot of jobs per day. 

I believed that now that I had the printer, I had to stick with it. The price of ink was high, but what could I do about it? Not accepting high rates would mean getting rid of the printer, and I didn’t want that. 

Printer companies have been very clever with their pricing models. 

The upfront cost of a printer is incredibly low. You can buy printer units for my office for less than one day’s salary for an employee. That’s seriously cheap. 

But ink is a different matter. Although you pay less for a cartridge of ink than for the printer, you can get through thousands of dollars worth per month. It is a big problem. 

It was clear to me what was happening. Printer companies were using high ink prices to subsidize printer prices. Printers were only cheap because the ink was expensive. 

The situation seemed a little bit like the games console market. Games consoles themselves are inexpensive. You can buy what is effectively a gaming computer for a couple of hundred bucks. 

But a games console is no use without the games. So games companies charge a fortune for their games. It’s just how the economic incentives play out. 

Printer ink, therefore, seems destined to be expensive. But does it have to be? I began to wonder. 

How I Discovered I Was Paying Too Much For Printer Ink

The interesting thing about printer ink is that it is not expensive to manufacture. 

I understood, therefore, that I could, in theory, spend less on it. But who might sell printer ink closer to cost? It wasn’t clear to me. 

Some ink cartridge companies help to get the price down. People have found ways to offer businesses lower costs – something that they desperately need.   

When you think about it, you realize that printer ink shouldn’t be expensive. The high prices are just an artifact of low printer prices. It doesn’t have anything to do with the costs of manufacturing the ink itself. 

How To Buy Printer Ink

Some online companies, however, change this dynamic. They let business customers buy printer ink cartridges for a fraction of the price that you had to pay in the past. 

The way that they get prices down is twofold. The first is the bulk discounts. 

If customers buy more than a certain quantity of premium printer ink cartridges, for instance, they can get money off the rest of their order.

It works in a similar way to regular bulk discounts. The more that you spend, the lower the unit price. It happens in every other market, so why not the printer ink market? 

The second factor is the generic cartridge options. It turns out that businesses don’t have to buy ink cartridges made by their printer company. They can buy cheaper compatible versions made by a third party. 

Many companies stand behind all their third-party ink cartridge products. You can often buy generic cartridges that met or exceeded OEM standards. In other words, customers can actually get something better for less money. 

As a business owner, this is important. You need printer products that let you keep costs downs and stay competitive. Finally, some sellers are making this possible. 

Do you want to start saving on your ink cartridges?

Ink cartridges can be expensive. But if you take the right approach, you can find that you save a lot of money. 

I personally buy remanufactured inks, its affordable and do the job just fine. You can buy them online from Yoyoink or any remanufactured ink sellers from Amazon, many affordable options can be found online these days.

While it might seem like a small item on your expenses list, it can amount to a substantial sum.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/small-business-advice/paying-too-much-for-your-printer-ink-heres-what-you-need-and-where-to-buy-it/