In response to this story about toner cartridge prices on Personal Computer World, a site based in the UK, HP issued a response that creatively explained the practice of putting partially-filled cartridges into new printers. According to the story, HP said that the low capacity toner cartridges had just the right amount of ink for people who don’t print that often. If these people who don’t print that often had regular cartridges, the ink could go to waste because it wouldn’t be used often enough.

The original reason the author wrote the article was because of the sticker shock he experienced when it came time to buy his first toner cartridge. He also had a problem with the store that sold a cartridge to him (appropriately, the store was called PC World) because they had different prices for their business customers. Both sides blamed each other, as PC World said HP sets the prices and HP said they weren’t responsible for “street prices” and then offered their explanation for low capacity cartridges.

HP did admit part of the reason why they don’t include regular cartridges with new printers; purchase price. They acquire customers by charging a low price for their machines, and then once they have them they can charge whatever they want for new cartridges. But if the high price they charge for one of their new cartridges was added to the cost of a new printer, well then not as many people would buy new printers. They are banking on the fact that people will not want to buy a whole new printer just because the a new toner cartridge is more than they thought it would be.

Printing money at PC World [Personal Computer World]
Start-up cartridges in printers designed for light users, claims HP [Personal Computer World]