HP Recalls Fax 1010 and 1010xi

Due to a possible fire risk, HP has recalled the Fax 1010 and 1010xi machines that were manufactured in China and sold from November 2002 to December 2004, at a price of $130 to $150.

If you have one of these machines, here is the link for what to do and how to contact HP.

We encourage any of our readers or customers with these printers to turn them in.

New Products

Once again, it is time to update what are some of the new products at O-ink’s Website and our two stores.

First up - Pitney Bowes USPS Branded Postage Meter Cartridges - These are the official Pitney Bowes cartridges.  Now in stock and ready to ship.

Next - As mentioned in previous post, replacement cartridges for the new Kodak printers.

Next - HP 60XL cartridges.  O-ink does not sell the standard, as they are not economical.  Both the black and color are in-stock.

Finally - HP CB540 Series.  While we ranted about these in the past on the bad economics, we are still selling them.

Circuit City & Lexmark Printers - :-(

It seems Circuit City has become really smart with their printer sales.  They figured out that if you sell a printer where you can get the cartridge at any store, there isn’t much of a turn around.  However, if you sell printers that the only place you can get the cartridges is their store, they earn more money.

I first discussed this back in March (link is here), however, they have recently expanded the number of printers that they carry from Lexmark that CC is the only place to get the cartridges.  Besides the following printers, Lexmark X2480, X2580, X3480, X3580, X4580 and Z1480, CC has recently added the X2690 printer.  This printer takes the #4 Black and the #5 Color.

Compared to the other printers, at least with this one you can order the printer cartridges from Lexmark’s website.  However, they are currently not available at any other retail location.

Personally, since the printer is from Lexmark, I would not touch them with a ten foot pole.  If you need something cheap, look at HP.

Moderate Yield Ink, what is it?

I have been getting a lot of searches on “moderate yield ink levels”.  So I figured I would spell it out plain and simple.  It is a waste of money.

Lexmark is the most common company that does moderate yield cartridges.  Cartridges like the 17, 71, 49, 19, and 32  are only  half full cartridges.

Here are some numbers.  Lexmark 17 cost $21 for roughly 200 pages.  Lexmark 16, which is physically identical, cost $33 for 400 pages.  For 12 bucks more you get 200 more pages.  Same with the Lexmark 71 and 70, the 70 cost about $35 for 600 pages, while the 71 cost about $22 for 255 pages.

Bottomline, if you see moderate yield ink, don’t get it.  Get the High yield or Standard yield cartridge for your printer, it will save you money in the long run.

Price switching by Staples???

Let me start by saying I like shopping at Staples as well as using their website as a reference tool. Recently we started to do a price quote for a possible new customer. Looking over the quote at home, my wife said, we have to lower our prices on the TN360 and DR360 from Brother as Staples is cheaper than us. No big deal, sometimes we are cheaper, other times we aren’t. However, when I have set up the prices for those two cartridge, I know I was cheaper. So I hopped on my computer and pulled up Staples’ website

. After looking up the printer, I told my wife she was wrong, and here are the correct prices. 62.99 for the TN360 and 115.98 for the DR360. Well, any man who is married, knows what happens when you tell your wife she is wrong. I said it happens and left it at that.

So I come into work the next day to finish the quote and get it sent out. I pull up Staples website again to verify the prices, again. Well in less than 18 hours the prices have changed back to what my wife and put down, not what we saw last night. I thought that was strange. Now I usually run Firefox as my main browser, so for kicks and giggles, I started IE. Pulled up the same printer, and what do I get, well take a look.

Two different price points on the same products at Staples.

I do not know how we did this. I hope this isn’t something like the Best Buy Intranet scene from back. Now I know that each physical location can set their own prices on products, which usually are not inline with the website prices. However, with a difference like this, I wonder what the reason is.

Oh, and if incase you are wondering, here are O-ink’s everyday prices for everyone.

*Update* After doing some further research, it seems that only the Brother cartridges are affected by this.

Oil prices and cost of printer cartridges Part 2

This is a follow up post to my post at the beginning of May (here is the link). I have noticed some interesting things happening in the past month that I thought were a few months off.

1. Prices have already started to go up. I have checked two local Walmart’s and the prices for their cartridges have already gone up about 10% roughly. Now this is not a nation wide affect yet, but for our local Walmart’s the prices are staying.
2. More people are looking to save - We have seen our sales keep going up. Granted in May, June, and July we are usually slow, however, our slow down this year has not been the same as in years past. We are seeing higher traffic from people who want to try and save some cash.
3. The cartridge manufactures are starting to increase their prices. Here is an article from Kodak. With them increasing prices, that means that their black cartridge will increase by about $2 and color about $3 if the prices affect the cartridges. Their printers, which are mentioned in the article, will go up from $20 to $40.

We personally have seen small price increases in our OEM products, but not in our replacement and refilled products. In fact, as for the next 6 months, O-ink should not have to increase our replacement or refilled prices, of course barring a major increase in prices.

With that being said, I am going to change my outlook for the year. The prices will probably go up from 5-10% to 10-30% by years end.

Also, if you are looking for Kodak Cartridges, here is the link for our replacements.

Customer Appreciation Day - Coupon

5 years ago on June 2nd, 2003, O-ink opened the Mt. Pleasant Store. After making it for 5 years, we have decided to throw a little bit of a party of sorts for you, our customers.

Our First Annual Customer Appreciation Day

If you live either near Mt. Pleasant or Saint Johns Michigan, you can stop in our stores that day and get 10% off replacement cartridges. If you have an HP or Lexmark cartridge that we can refill, you get 50% off.

For those of you who shop on the web, at our website, www.oinkinkstore.com, you can get 10% off any replacement cartridges using the following coupon code at the check out, thankyou.  This offer is valid only on June 2nd, 2008.

In New Cartridge news:

We have added some new products to our website and store’s computer systems. First is the high yield replacement for the Lexmark T430. This is a 12,000 yield cartridge priced at 189.99. The second cartridge will be available June 6th, is the HP CB435, which goes into the HP Laserjet P1005 and P1006 printers. This cartridge is rated for 1500 pages and cost 57.99

Using the right paper in your printer.

I do apologize as it has been a while since I have posted.  Family things and other work items have taken me away for a bit.

Paper, it all pretty much seems the same, but it really isn’t.  You have copy, inkjet, laser, photo, label, speciality, transparancy, and many more that I am forgetting.  I am just going to talk about some tips about paper and printers.

1.  Only use paper made for your printer:  Inkjet printers are really not made for laser paper and laser printers are not designed for inkjet.  Inkjet paper is made to hold in the ink, while laser paper is designed to withstand the high heat that a laser printer puts out.  While actual inkjet and laser paper cost more, a safe bet is multi-use paper.

2.  Photo paper in laser printers, only if you want to ruin it:  Photo paper is made to hold ink, not toner from laser printers.  Putting in photo paper into a laser printer to print off a photo is all good, but you might ruin the laser printer as the toner has nothing to fuse to.  Unless the paper says it is made for laser printers, do not put it in there.

3.  Labels - Everything for labels is the same as photo paper.

The paper you use depends on the output you get.  If you want photo quality, use photo paper made for your printer (i.e. HP printer - HP paper).  Sometimes off brands are okay, but stick with the name brands on photo paper.

Oil prices and printer cartridge cost

Everyone and their brother/sister has been watching oil prices go up and up and up.  There seems to be no end.  With higher oil prices, means higher fuel cost, which in turns means higher prices for almost everything.  However, most people just look at the fuel prices.  Here at our St. Johns store, fuel prices are around $3.69 for unleaded today.  But what about the other products of oil, mainly, plastics.

Yes that wonderful non-degrading product we use daily is made out of oil.  I recently read an article that stated that a laser toner cartridge on average has between 1/2 to 1 gallon of oil in the creation process, while Inkjet cartridges are around 1-3 quarts.  This can add up over time.  The question is when will companies like HP, Lexmark, and Canon pass on the cost of the plastics on to consumers.  I would guess it is only a matter of time and here are the factors.

1. Cartridges are their money makers, even for a large company like HP.  So if their margins slip, they want to keep investors happy, they would raise prices.
2. Shipping cost have increased.  We have all seen this in food, gas, and everyday purchases.
3. The cartridge bodies are made from plastic - Plastic is made from oil.  It only makes sense that the prices would increase.

I am GUESSING that by the end of the year, if oil prices increase like they have been, that printer cartridges could see an increase in 5-10% for OEM or brand name cartridges.

However, using recycled and refilled printer cartridges should not see as big of increase for one main reason, we are not making new cartridge bodies.  We use the shell they made and add ink to it and make it work.  Which is why I promote using refilled and recycled cartridges.  Visit our website to see all of our refilled printer cartridges.

Estimated Ink Levels

Just had a customer today return two bad color cartridges that we sold her.  The first one we got from our supplier and it was electronicly dead.  The second one was a cartridge we had just refilled in house.  She had brought the cartridge in from her printer cause it had just been emptied, 13.99 plus tax she had the same cartridge with ink in it ready to go.

Her complaint was that the one we refilled said it was empty.  I assured her it would and reminder her that according to HP, the Ink Levels are estimates only as they can not tell you the actual amount in there due to the kind of cartridge HP designed.  She still wanted her money back, even after I put it on the scale for her (showing that it was 3 grams above full).

So how do you tell how much ink is in your cartridge?  Well, if you own a Brother or Canon printer that takes the single tank cartridges, you are fine.  Canon and Brother employ an optical sensor to view the levels.  HP, Lexmark, and Dell use estimators.  These estimators go off from page count, paper used,  and quality level.  So how off can they be?  It all depends on the printer, some printers, they are right on, maybe have a error ratio of less than 5%.  Others, especially HP printers that use the 57 color and 58 photo, can be off from 70% to 100%.  While it is rare, we do get people turning in ‘empty’ HP cartridges that by weight, are completely full.  Going back to the question posted above, how do you tell?  There are two main ways.

1.  Time - You have an idea on how long a cartridge should last you, couple months or a year, each person is different.  Any cartridge you put into your printer should last as long, assuming your printing habits do not change.

2.  Quality - If what you print starts to look bad, there are only two possible reasons, dirty or empty.  Most of the time it means they are empty.

What about the cartridge that O-ink sells, how do I know they are full?  Every cartridge that O-ink fills in house is weighed two times before we seal it.  Our Factory filled cartridges are weighed 3 times before they leave.  We have the full weights and empty weights for every cartridge that we have the ability to fill, so we can tell you how full your cartridge is.