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| Fine print: The cost of a couple of new cartridges nearly equals the price of a printer |
You click on the print icon on your computer and realise that the ink cartridge has dried up. What do you do? Simple. You go and buy a new cartridge and don’t care even if it costs Rs 1,200. After all, you don’t seem to have much of an option. But wait, did you know that your old cartridge could be reused? And that too, more than once?
Thanks to new developments in printer technology, cartridges can now be easily refilled. Several companies offer refilling options for inkjet printers, ribbons for dot matrix printers and laser toners. Besides, refilled cartridges are also affordable. Says Souvik Roy, a software engineer in Calcutta, “A good colour cartridge refill costs anywhere between Rs 180 and Rs 200. A black ink cartridge is cheaper.” According to the proprietor of a computer hardware shop in Calcutta, black ink refills are available for as little as Rs 60.
Adds Roy, “I prefer refilling my cartridges at least thrice before I buy a new one.” Ashish Mehta, a tax consultant in Mumbai, too prefers refilling cartridges for the five inkjet printers at his firm. Meanwhile, Cartridge World, a multinational company that sells compatible and refilled cartridges worldwide, has finalised its plans to open 250 stores across India in the next two years.
According to Lyra Research, about 1.3 billion ink cartridges are sold worldwide every year. Last year, the sales generated revenue of $30.1 billion. Today, if a low end HP printer costs Rs 3,000, a black cartridge costs Rs 1,200 and a colour cartridge costs even more.
If a consumer buys a couple of cartridges, the cost is almost equal to the price of a printer. Explains Mehta, “Canon stopped manufacturing its PIXMA iP 1000 because “compatible” cartridges flooded the market. While original Canon cartridges came for Rs 300, compatible cartridges were available for a mere Rs 75.” This is what makes refilled cartridges an attractive proposition and more popular among consumers. Says Naveen Rakhecha, chief executive officer, Cartridge World India, “The ink and toner cartridge market size in India is estimated to be valued at over Rs 1,000 crore and is growing by over 20 per cent a year.”
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One of the most important things about refilled cartridges is that they are not duplicates. Says Rakhecha, “When a consumer asks for a refilled cartridge, we never give back the cartridge with the original label of the printer company. Since we are the ones who refill it, we make sure that it is our label that is displayed.” Refill cartridge operators also use a superior quality ink that is compatible with printers, though there may be a difference in the output.
One question here. Why do cartridges, when you buy them from original equipment manufacturers, cost more? According to Roy, if an original cartridge gives 100 per cent output, the refilled one gives only about 75 per cent output. And subsequent refills even affect the output quality.
Manufacturers and users of printers however advise against refills because it can get messy if the job is not done properly. If the person refilling the cartridge doesn’t know how to go about it, the printer may be damaged, causing blotting and smudging of ink. In a worst case scenario, the printer may even start malfunctioning. And the flipside is that printer companies refuse to repair the printer, once they figure out that a refilled cartridge has been used.
However, this is a risk people like Roy and Mehta are willing to take. Says Mehta, “If you need printouts only for rough use like internal filing, a refilled cartridge is certainly a cheaper option.” In any case, a new cartridge has to be purchased after three or four refills.