*NEWS*CABOODLE’S CHEAPER TONER REFILLS

[Anonymous]

Caboodle offers cheaper refills on toner
cartridges

FAIRFIELD – If you feel you pay as much for a refilled inkjet or laser
printer cartridge as you do for a new printer, the owners of Caboodle Cartridge
say they should be your next stop.

“Printing is expensive and we are cheaper than the major stores,” said Rekha
Patel, Caboodle Cartridge sales manager.

Owner Ken Patel and Rekha Patel opened the Caboodle Cartridge store on Travis
Boulevard Jan. 20. The store is a franchise of the Santa Clara-based
business.

They take pride in their ability to refill and resell cartridges for half the
cost of original cartridges with an emphasis on getting the customer exactly the
right ink for their needs.

If things go well, the Patels plan to expand to four other locations – Davis,
Concord, Santa Rosa and Citrus Heights – within the next three years.

The couple was running the trinket and memorabilia store Aftershock in
Westfield Shoppingtown Solano when they heard of Caboodle Cartridge and
researched it on the Internet.

“What appealed to us was that it was something that everyone needs,” Rekha
Patel said.

It was the quality of the cartridge refilling and replacement process that
appealed to Ken Patel.

“It is so efficient,” Ken Patel said.

The company was started in Santa Clara in 2003 by the father-son team of
Daniel and Chris Wencel, who decided to offer franchises last year.

Instead of using a syringe to inject ink into cartridges while the customers
wait, Caboodle ships the cartridges to the Santa Clara store.

Once there, the cartridges are steam-cleaned first to ensure all the old ink
is gone, electronically checked to ensure the cartridge works well, refilled
using a vacuum method so there are no air bubbles and tested again.

What the customer gets the moment they hand over their old cartridge is a
repackaged cartridge that has undergone the treatment.

The injection method is messy, causes clumps and bubbles in the ink, and
degrades the quality of the injected ink because it is mixing with the remnants
of the old ink, the Patels said.

The store offers refills and replacements that are compatible with brands
that include Hewlett-Packard, Epson, Canon, Lexmark, Brother, Samsung. Xerox,
Sharp and Panasonic.

They also buy empty cartridges to ensure they don’t end up in a landfill.

Five months into their business, the Patels feel they have connected with the
community with a customer base that is 60 percent small businesses and 40
percent residents. A growing number of these are repeat customers.

“We have business cards from all the businesses we work with,” Rekha Patel
said, noting she refers customers to them for needs that range from real estate
to landscaping.

“Word of mouth is better than any advertising,” Rekha Patel said. “Every week
gets better and better as more people find out about our business.”

[Author]

May 28, 2005 at 11:48 AM