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Cartridge World starts to expand
Company branches out to Bay Area and beyond
Tuesday, January 20, 2004 – EMERYVILLE — Cartridge World, which lets customers save money and help the environment by refilling empty printer cartridges instead of replacing them, is expanding locally and across the U.S.
The fast-growing Australian company, which has North American headquarters in Emeryville, opened its first Bay Area franchise 21/2 months ago in Foster City and is set to open a store this week in Berkeley. The chain now has 40 stores open or under construction in the U.S. and plans to have 200 stores open nationwide by the end of 2004, with up to 20 in Northern California.
“The company is booming,” said Burt Yarkin, CEO of Car- tridge World North America. “We’re in the process of changing the way people think about printer cartridges.”
Buying a replacement printer cartridge typically costs $30 or more at a retail store. But Cartridge World charges about 50 percent less to refill a printer cartridge. And instead of ending up in a landfill, the cartridge is reused — up to eight times for an inkjet cartridge and more for a laser printer cartridge, Yarkin said.
Cartridge World refills cartridges for inkjet and laser printers, photocopy and fax machines and offers a 100 percent money-back guarantee. It refills inkjet cartridges in about 10 minutes and laser printer cartridges overnight.
“The hardest thing at first is people who have had bad experiences on the Internet or with do-it-yourself kits,” said Yvonne Ryzak, owner of the Foster City Cartridge World at 985 E. Hillsdale Blvd. “Once they realize we are different and have 130 different inks and we give a 100 percent money-back guarantee, then they’re willing to trust and try. Then we have them forever.”
The printer cartridge market is a multibillion-dollar business. Manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard recommend using their cartridges for the best quality, but the refill market is growing. Cartridge World has 420 stores worldwide and is opening one store a day, Yarkin said. Another chain, Island Ink-Jet Systems of Canada, has opened a store in San Jose.
Cartridge World was founded in 1988. Its first franchise in the U.S. opened four months ago. The company plans to have 500 U.S. stores by the end of 2005, Yarkin said. The average franchise investment is $110,000 a store, he said.
Ken and Mirna Wong, who own the new Cartridge World store at 2161 Allston Way in downtown Berkeley, expect that their customers will include UC-Berkeley students, faculty and staff and small and medium businesses.
“People here realize that buying a new printer cartridge is neither cost effective nor environmentally friendly,” Ken Wong said. “We’re offering an alternative that is going to help people save money and it’s not only promoting recycling but reuse.”
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