The remanufacturer’s Polish subsidiary Artech Moravia showed how OEM cartridges often contain less-than-capacity amounts of ink.
The company was visited by a presenter on the UK’s Channel 4 show The Shopper’s Guide to Saving Money, who wanted to test the claim that remanufactured cartridges offer up to three times the yield of originals.
She introduced remanufactured cartridges as “used plastic shells refilled with new ink” that sell for 25 to 30 percent less than the originals, after one user said they had concerns about low-quality prints and the damage aftermarket cartridges may cause to their printer. Artech’s Frans Hondmann showed the presenter gaps in a cartridge filled with air rather than ink and explained that “the price of the cartridge has remained at a similar level, but at the same time they have put less and less and less ink in it”.
The presenter also brought two cartridges along to be remanufactured, and while the refurbished cartridges did not work as there was a problem with the chip, Hondmann sent out two more which did work in her printer. Hondmann also advised that users could save up to 28 percent on cartridges by printing with ‘eco font’, which involves tiny spaces being left between printed letters.
Meanwhile, another presenter was granted exclusive access to the Epson cartridge manufacturing facility in Telford in the UK, and asked Rob Clark, Vice President of Marketing for the EMEA, why cartridges are so expensive.
He replied: “What we’re doing over time is we’re trying to match customer needs; those that print more have a bigger cartridge, those that print less have a smaller cartridge.”
The programme then detailed information about the costs of making a cartridge, with the raw materials of the ink amounting to 7.5p ($0.11/€0.10), while the other components cost around 50p ($0.76/€0.70), meaning the manufacturer charges 16 times more the production price, at £8 ($12.17/€11.29).
The presenter concluded that “what you’re actually paying for is the technology of the printer itself” and that this is included in the price of the cartridges, keeping the printer price cheaper.
An Epson alternative to this is the EcoTank, which involves paying £200 ($304/€282) for the printer, four times the standard price of an inkjet, but the ink tank lasts two years and can be refilled for £30 ($45/€42).