The Indian company is setting up cartridge refilling services in consumables stores across Mumbai.
Channel Times and DQ Week reported on Mumbai-based Insta Impex’ plans to open inkjet cartridge refilling kiosks at consumables dealerships across the city, using its “unique concept”. The plan will see Insta Impex work with dealers so as to refill cartridges and “provide better quality than regular manual refills and higher margins than dealing in branded cartridges”.
DQ Week noted that the kiosks act “like a demo-cum-service outlet for customers wanting to experience the controlled methods of recycling inkjet cartridges”, though only HP, Canon, Lexmark and Xerox cartridges can be refilled. The company’s Harish Lalwani has “tied up or is on the verge of finalising agreements with five dealers in Mumbai”, which will see the company’s Instafill collection points installed in stores, as each one only requires 60 square foot of space.
The kiosks use “ionised water, imported from Germany” to clean the cartridges, while the equipment in turn “ensures that the pigment particle size of the ink is uniform”, according to Lalwani. In turn, techniques including “electric circuit testing, emptying, cleaning, centrifuging, vacuum chamber filling, pressurising and final print testing” are used.
The compact kiosks, the company adds, are designed to be used in offices, shopping centres and other “commercial places” beyond consumable stores. The concept is being promoted through brochures to existing customers and those “already in the business”, and Insta Impex aims to introduce kiosks in stores in Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai “within six months”.
Lalwani noted that refills will cost Rs 150 ($2.26/€2.11) for black and Rs 200 ($3.01/€2.82) for colour, a “fraction” of the cost for remanufactured cartridges at Rs 600 to 700 ($9.05 to $10.56/€8.47 to €9.88) and originals at Rs 900 ($13.58/€12.71). He also added that the kiosk’s purpose “is to demonstrate and distribute equipment” developed by TB Accessorios in Brazil, with whom Insta Impex have “signed an exclusive agreement” to distribute the systems.
The kiosks will cost between Rs six lakh and Rs seven lakh ($9,056 and $10,565/€8,474 and €9,886) for the end-customer, and Lalwani commented: “Being the first company in India to introduce such a concept, we are already seeing encouraging response to the initial marketing that we did in the last couple of weeks.”