Have you ever noticed how the price of a printer is often less than the price of the replacement cartridges you need to purchase when the low quantity cartridge which comes with your printer runs out? Well, this is no coincidence. It used to be a tactic employed only by HP but it seems that all inkjet printer manufacturers are playing this dirty trick.

Basically what they do is sell their printers for dirt cheap prices simply to lure in customers when they are fully aware that the profit from the customer will only arrive when he purchases replacement cartridges. And it will be a big profit indeed because they really mark up their ink cartridges assuming they already have a captive audience who own their printers.

It may be a legitimate marketing tactic but I don’t like it. That’s why I try to only purchase compatible ink cartridges. I figure this way I win twice. First of all I get the printer at a rock bottom price and then I benefit from the lower price of compatible ink cartridges. There is one thing to take into account though and that’s that there are a number of manufacturers of compatible cartridges and not all are the same. When dealing with anything other than the original it’s important to purchase from a trusted source. A good source for compatible cartridges and toners is inkers.biz. I try to only purchase from them since I know I will be getting a high quality product and their prices are great.