Recently there was an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “A Cheaper Way to Refill Your Printer”, which was about Walgreens and other stores introducing ink refill services. Customers will bring their empty cartridges into the stores, and for around an average of $15, the stores will use special machines to refill them. Right about now is when we would link you to the article, but the WSJ isn’t too big on sharing and they charge $4.95 to view their articles. So we will try to sum things up for you while we offer our opinion on the matter.

The article represents both the good and bad when it comes to alternatives to the manufacturer’s cartridges. The good side to it is that it makes us happy any time people learn more about the alternatives to overpriced ink. Even though we would be in direct competition with stores featuring these ink refill stations, we can look past that and just be glad that more and more people are realizing that they don’t have to pay HP $30 for 5 ml of ink. Another good thing is that the article mentions facts that everyone should know, like how HP loses money on their printers just so they can sell ink, how they have been “stingier” with the amount of ink in their cartridges lately, and how it is estimated that the margin on their ink and toner cartridges is 60%.

The bad side to it is that the article does little to change the stigma that refilled or remanufactured cartridges are inferior to those made by the printer manufacturers. It cites a 2003 study by Quality-Logic Inc. that said that “54% of the remanufactured cartridges it tested had problems.” What they failed to mention was that study was commissioned by HP. They also don’t specifically define what a “problem” was. People who read that might just assume that 54% of remanufactured cartridges fail. It is doubtful that even the shadiest of companies could sell something that failed one out of every two times. Over the years, we have found that our defective rate for remanufactured cartridges holds steady at about 5%, compared with around 1-2% for new HP cartridges. Higher? Yes. 50 times higher? Not exactly.

One other negative about the article was that these ink refill machines could actually harm some people’s opinions about the refilling/remanufacturing industry. A key component of remanufacturing ink cartridges is matching the specific ink for each cartridge, since it differs from cartridge to cartridge and especially from manufacturer to manufacturer. So if people are bringing all types of cartridges in to stores to be filled by a machine that has just one type of black and color ink, then eventually there may be some unsatisfied customers.

So, the moral of the story is to take notice of the alternatives that are out there. Realize that HP, Lexmark, Epson, Canon, Dell and the whole lot of them overcharge for their ink. But also be aware that not all alternatives are of the same quality, so do your research and realize that Pacific Ink is the best.