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N.J. Company Has Growing Printer Cartridge Refill Business
Residents can have their ink and print it too, thanks to Chris Beyer, the owner of Technician X, a computer service and repair company located in Skillman.
Mr. Beyer has found the answer to expensive inkjet cartridge woes in the form of what he describes as his increasingly successful Inkjet refill business, which saves his customers money while helping to preserve the environment.Inkjet is a popular printer in many households, but its ink is notorious for continuously hurting wallets. At anywhere from $20 to $40 a cartridge, Inkjet makes plenty of revenue just on its supplies alone, a practice Mr. Beyer called “the razor blade theory.”
”You buy one razor, but all the replacements are expensive,” he said. “It’s a little dishonest sometimes and this is a way we can combat that kind of dishonest business practice.”
Instead of buying new ink cartridges, customers are able to bring their empty ones to Technician X, where they refill the cartridge for only half the ink’s original cost. This means that if a customer buys an Inkjet cartridge for $20, Technician X will just charge $10 to replenish it.
People are able to save a lot of money through Technician X, often making them repeat customers. Mr. Beyer estimated that for the average family that goes through 12 cartridges a year, just by refilling those cartridges they are able to save anywhere from $150 to $250 annually.
Customers do their part to create a healthier environment just by bringing their empty cartridges to Technician X. Not only do they leave with inexpensive ink, but also with a clear conscious. It can take up to 1,000 years for a single cartridge to break down and decompose and more than 375 million Inket cartridges are tossed annually.
By recycling, Mr. Beyer’s refilling business prevents discarded cartridges from littering landfills. “It’s a really green business,” Mr. Beyer said. “You’re not throwing them away -reusing them is always better.”
The idea to refill and recycle ink cartridges popped up a year ago when Mr. Beyer noticed many people complaining about the high price of ink. After extensive research and traveling to observe ink filling machines, he took the plunge and bought his own digital inkjet filling machine from an Israeli company in Boca Raton, Fla.
The inkjet machine was the most expensive option to solving the issue, but Mr. Beyer does not regret it.
”It was well worth it,” he said. “It gives high quality and people here expect high quality.”
But it doesn’t stop there.
”The best thing is that the failure rate is less than 1 percent,” Mr. Beyer said. “This means if I sell 100 inks, only one might not operate correctly.”What started as a secondary business advertised by word of mouth, is now a popular service that has increased Technician X’s annual revenue by 20 percent, Mr. Beyer said.
The success is not only a result of people on budgets, but also because of students.
”A lot is driven by kids who use ink a lot for homework,” he said. “A lot of the younger generations are environmentally conscious.”
Mr. Beyer has ambitious plans for Technician X’s future. He aims to expand the recycling aspect and get more into recycled hardware as well.
”Recycling is one thing and then repairing and reusing is even more environmentally sound,” Mr. Beyer said. “With repairing and reusing, you’re using the whole unit and it doesn’t need to be broken down or recycled. We will make an impact.”
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