In Sydney yesterday it seemed to me that every second bus I passed was advertising large capacity printers from Epson. The signs promoted a two year life for the ink provided with the printer. Epson is not alone in pushing this model.
Newsagents with considerable ink sales need to be aware of the trend and to factor this into their business planning.
When a customer tells me that their printer has died I recommend they buy a larger scale printer as it is more cost effective and I also tell them that like inkjets I am the cheapest when it comes to heavy capacity toners. It was predicted over 2-3 years ago that inkjets would finish and over the last 2 years we have seen some of the companies move out of this market. Ink is a competitive market and the GP is low so its a tough market to focus efforts on when there are other areas growing at a steadier rate with higher GP.
I still have a constant sale stream but I buy on demand so I am not caught carrying stock.
One thing I have observed is the increasing number of people who go to a newsagent or other small retailer, get their prices on ink then proceed to head up the road to Officeworks and get Officeworks to price beat whatever the best price happens to be.
Jonathan, we stopped that march years ago when we started using the Officeworks app in-store to price compare for our customers.
Luckily for us the nearest Officeworks is 30 minutes drive away. Yet I do the same as Mark and let every customer know how much they are saving buying from us compared to Officeworks.
The price of the Epson printer starts at $450.00,, that’s like buying a ride on to to mow the easy care yard. I think I paid twice that for one the size of a small fridge a Toshiba. Can’t see too much of a disruption.