tonerink@hotmail.com
Photos: I'LL GET YOU A REFILL -- Jonathan Bassuk overhauling a toner cartridge at Cartridge World in White Plains. An ink cartridge is refilled, top. (Photographs by Alan Zale for The New York Times)
WHEN Ray Imperato received a yellow coupon in the mail offering $2 off on an inkjet or toner cartridge refill at Cartridge World, he was flummoxed.
''I couldn't understand fully what it was about,'' he said.
So Mr. Imperato, owner of Better Carting Service, a waste management company in White Plains, visited Cartridge World, a year-old White Plains store, and learned that he could have his original printer cartridges cleaned, rebuilt and refilled for much less than it would cost for new ones.
A new Canon toner cartridge for one of his three printers sells for $129.99 at Staples, but the same cartridge, recycled, costs $79.99 from Cartridge World, whose motto, ''Your Link to Half Price Ink,'' is only a slight exaggeration.
Mr. Imperato became a loyal customer after ascertaining that the print quality of the recycled cartridge was comparable.
The walk-in cartridge refill business, which has a few outposts in Westchester, hopes to attract many more customers like Mr. Imperato, according to Burt Yarkin, chief executive officer of Cartridge World North America, in Emeryville, Calif.
Mr. Yarkin said that ''printer manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard and Epson are giving away their printers very cheap and making all their money on ink cartridges.'' He wants to siphon off some of that profit for his own company.
Cartridge World, founded in Australia in 1988, began to sell franchises in 1997 and started operating in the United States in 2003. There are now 285 Cartridge World stores in 43 states, including 20 in New York, with one in White Plains and another in Eastchester, according to Mr. Yarkin. He said the company planned to open 300 more stores nationwide next year.
The revenue from ink and toner for business machines is certainly enormous. In 2005, the industry raked in about $21 billion in North America alone, according to Jim Forrest, a senior analyst for Lyra Research, a marketing firm in Newtonville, Mass., that specializes in digital imagery and printing. About 20 percent of that revenue, he said, is derived from aftermarket recycling businesses like Cartridge World.
''These refill shops are a new phenomenon,'' Mr. Forrest said, ''and they have a good future. We're forecasting that they will continue to grow and to take share away from the printer manufacturers.'' Eventually, he predicted, these storefront shops will make up nearly one-third of inkjet and toner cartridge sales.
In an online survey of inkjet cartridge users conducted earlier this year for Recharger Magazine, an office products recycling publication, Mr. Forrest found that 23 percent of the respondents had tried a refilled inkjet cartridge at least once. In that group, 57 percent found the print quality as good as or better than the quality of a new cartridge bought from the manufacturer, he said.
This is bad news for companies like Hewlett-Packard, the $80 billion technology company that owns more than 4,000 patents on printing supplies like ink and toner.
The remanufacturers are valid competitors, but they tend to offer an inferior product, according to Tuan Tran, a Hewlett-Packard vice president for sales and marketing, based in Vancouver, Wash.
''We tell our story about our products' quality, reliability and value,'' he said, citing studies about his competitors' print products that show ''their threshold on quality and reliability is lower'' (see www.hp.com/sbso/product/supplies/whybuy--reliability.html).
Whether that is true or not, it is not expected to make much difference. According to Stephen Baker, an electronics industry analyst for NPD Corporation, a Port Washington market research firm, ''There is no magic bullet that will show up and make the whole remanufacture market disappear.''
Of course, he acknowledged, there are palliative measures that companies like Hewlett-Packard can take, like trying to ''reduce the ways that empty cartridges get on the market.'' He predicted efforts to persuade consumers, through advertising, that the original product is better. Ultimately, he added, the price of a new cartridge will come down. (This process has already begun; all new-generation cartridges hold less ink and are therefore less expensive.)
hat trend is not pleasing to Francis Siconolfi, one of two owners of Cartridge World in White Plains. The business, which required an upfront investment of about $140,000, has not yet turned a profit. But he and his partner, Walter Skalaski, clearly remain hopeful, because they have bought a second franchise in Scarsdale and plan to open another Cartridge World there in the next six months or so.
THE cartridge remanufacture business, though suddenly blossoming in Westchester, came to the county in 1988 with Laser Cartridge Services in Peekskill, according to its owner, Brian Sweeney. He says his record for refilling the same cartridge is 15 times -- though they usually wear out after about 10 refills. Most of his business is refilling Hewlett-Packard cartridges, which use only $5 to $15 worth of toner, he said.
Still, a certain number of printer users are not yet open to recycling printer cartridges. On a Monday, most of the pedestrians passing by Cartridge World did not give it a second glance. Among them was Fran Stevens, a book editor in White Plains who parked her car in front of the store, but said she had never noticed it, despite the fact that she and her family go through at least a half-dozen toner and inkjet cartridges a year. Once the concept was explained to her, she still didn't understand what the store sold; nor did she want to shop there.
''I go on eBay,'' she said, ''and try to get new ones cheaper.''
http://tonerink.services.officelive.com/default.aspx
http://tonerink.services.officelive.com
http://www.tonerink.com.mx
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario