*NEWS*HP:SUPER-SIZES PRINTER CARTRIDGES

[Anonymous]

HP Super-Sizes Consumer Printer Cartridges
HP Overhauls Printer Cartridge System ,New System Adds Jumbo Sizes
Hewlett-Packard said on Tuesday it will be gradually changing the way the company delivers its inkjet cartridges by instituting three new color-coded categories and a lowered, two-tiered pricing scheme for its inkjet printer cartridges. Gone will be the days of the standard printing system, where consumers bought a standard cartridge size using the conventional HP two-digit numbering system. HP now says that numerical identification will be revamped, and consumers will have a choice of the size of their cartridges.As part of an ongoing rollout that will continue through the remaining year, HP will introduce standard, value, and specialty cartridges—each labeled with a blue, green, and red color-coded system, respectively—in various retail stores and online, all in the hopes of offering its customers a simplified shopping experience, more choice, and greater value, the company said.According to Pradeep Jotwani, senior vice president of HP’s Supplies, Imaging, and Printing Group, the changes are nothing less than a total revamping of the way HP offers it supplies, as well as an admonition that not everyone has the same printing needs.It may also mean that the company is starting to feel the sting from various third-party inkjet cartridge companies that continue to sell HP-compatible ink cartridges for substantially less money.”We’re trying to do three things here,” Jotwani said. “We want to give consumers more choice, more value, and we’re trying to simplify the shopping experience, particularly in a world that is a hybrid online and offline world.””Before, the way we were doing it, we offered one black and one color cartridge to consumers,” Jotwani added, “with no choice within the printing system. We were trying to meet both subsets with one cartridge.”With its new, streamlined offerings, Jotwani says that HP is now recognizing that there are in fact two large clusters of cartridge buyers: “one set of people who want access to printing, but who don’t print that much—once or twice a week,” Jotwani said.For these more price-conscious consumers, HP is offering its standard cartridges (blue packaging), which the company says have a lower purchase price of $14.99.Then there’s another cluster that prints a lot: 7,000 plus pages a month,” Jotwani said. “They also want reliable, high-quality printing, but they’re focused on cost per page, not per cartridge.”For that subset, HP will offer higher-yield, value cartridges (green packaging) that will be priced at around $30 a box, the company says. This line will include new high-yield “XL” cartridges that HP says will provide customers with approximately 30 to 45 percent savings on a cost-per-page basis, print up to three times more pages, and require fewer cartridge replacements compared to standard cartridges.A third cartridge type, or specialty, will come packaged in red boxes and be aimed primarily at users who want to print the highest-quality photos possible. Those cartridges will be priced at about $25, and will print approximately 150 photos each.Alongside these changes, HP is also initiating a revamped two-digit cartridge identification system, which will be used throughout the HP inkjet cartridge line, as well as updated point-of-sale materials such as new ink selection guides.While the company currently uses a two-digit cartridge-naming scheme for most of its inkjet cartridges, the new system will expand that method, absorbing some of the popular cartridge numbers in the blue, green, red/normal XL scheme, HP said. 

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April 24, 2007 at 12:06 PM