M
Martin Trautmann
Which begs the question....why do OEM cartridges have to be over 10X the
cost of 3rd party cartridges?
The customer is willing to pay it - regardless of the concept (lexmark
printers, razor blades, petroleum lamps, free mobile phones, ...).
However, I still wonder why I had to pay > $ 500 (1100 DM) for my HP
DeskWriter, while its cartridge is the same price as any other $50
printer ;-)
My whole argument was in response to the speculation that retailers could be
partly to blame for the dear prices on OEM ink cartridges. If that was true
then surely at least one of the major retailers would decide to lowball ink
for the sake of increased traffic but we don't see that happening. Why
don't we ever see "Regular $19.99 on sale for $6.99"?
I don't know about the US market. Here in Germany there's only little
official price protection: one is on books, the other (becoming more and
more liberal, but still very high) is on medicine.
However, there may be plenty of pressure on the dealer when the
manufacturer does not like his low prices: they will just stop delivery
to him. Examples here are e.g. tools from 'Festool' or perfumes (which
are sometimes sold on disount - the first one to observe this will run
to the shop, purchase as much as possible and will get a refund from the
manufacturer; There are hidden details on the flacon in order to track
and close the channel how the dealer received this stuff).
I suppose, the first one to deliver original cartridges at low prices
will be out of stock very soon.
Regards
Martin