Ink prices have always been high, but with the economy tanking and many businesses suffering greatly it is more important than ever to look for inexpensive alternatives when you are restocking your supply, whether you use HP, Lexmark, Brother, Dell, or Xerox toner. Use this article to help decide which avenue you would like to utilize when purchasing toner online, as there is a surprisingly large selection of options available to choose from.
First of all, it helps to understand why ink and toner prices need to be as high as they are. Consumer electronics manufacturing companies, like those listed above, are locked in a fiercely competitive war for consumer sales of printers. This battle is so fierce and so demanding that often (especially for lower end household printers) these companies will offer printers under cost. That is, they will either lose money on the sale or come out even. At first sight this appears to be a very bad call, but the same thing happens with a number of industries. Shaving companies sell cheap shavers and make a killing of expensive replacement blades. Video game consoles cost their makers as well, but games are easy to burn up and sell, making long term steady profits that multiply by each cheap console sold. With printers, the profit comes from the ink.
It makes sense. When you sell someone your printer they are locked into a certain type of cartridge (since very few printers use the same cartridge as other printers, and never between different manufacturers). So in effect, once these companies sell a printer they have the consumer at the bottom end of an ink monopoly. Or at least, that’s how the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) would like it to be. The lucrative profits associated with these ink and toner cartridges has created an unexpectedly fierce aftermarket as third parties refill and remanufacture toner cartridges across the world. This means that you can buy high quality, expensive, original Samsung toner Which can make quality an important variable to consider when doing your shopping. You will want to begin your search at the actual website of your printer’s manufacturer, i.e. HP, Dell, Lexmark, Xerox, etc… from there you should be able to do a quick search for your printer and see a menu of the various toner options available. Packs containing more toner or ink (by page count) will be more expensive. Color toner will be much more expensive. If you need guaranteed high quality results, it may be worth it to spend the extra dough and go for these genuine articles. Otherwise, of course, you have more economical options.
The first and probably the best (for a business) are certain large online ink retailers. These guys are easy to find, simply type in the full search string of what you are after in Google, like toner cartridge, and you should get companies all over your search results offering various cartridges which will work with your printer. The advantage of these large online stores is the competition they face. These sites are established, entrenched. And because there isn’t all that much difference one to another they will do their utmost to keep every buyer that comes through (and if they don’t find someone else who does. The other nice thing, besides the customer service, is the selection. These sellers offer not only OEM options, but also third party cartridges of various prices and qualities, giving you many more options and someone to complain to if the cartridges don’t work when they show up.
You can find many of these same options at physical stores like Staples and Office Max who have their own lines of remanufactured cartridges as well. This can be good if you need something that day, and it can also be nice as these cartridges tend to be very reliable, sometimes coming out with a higher page count than the OEM packs (although rarely higher quality printing).
Lastly of course, you have your small storefronts on Amazon or eBay listing single packs of toner or ink. While this may be fine for a home computer that rarely needs to be refilled, these companies can be dangerous for businesses looking for large, steady resupply. First of all, many of these packs are of very low quality, having been made overseas and not working or arriving half-dried out already. Secondly, the shipping time for these can be horrendously long. Thirdly, if it’s a relatively new eBay account there is nothing to stop them from selling a bunch of bottom barrel crap and then closing shop. Always go with a seller who has something to lose and who has been around long enough to have reviews in place.