Toner Cartridges Today, Compatible, OEM Original, Fakes or Recharged?

[Anonymous]

Toner Cartridges Today, Compatible, OEM Original, Fakes or Recharged?
By Felix Gibson, FM Supplies,Germania s.r.o. ,
In the consumables industry, compatible stands for a product that is usable in machines manufactured by an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), whereas an "OEM " cartridge is manufactured or at least marketed by the manufacturer of those machines under his own brand. To draw a parallel and clarify the aftermarket phenomenon, in the car industry you may purchase an original battery from your car´s manufacturer, let`s say Ford, or you may buy a new or remanufactured battery from your garage, or you may buy a new compatible battery for use in your Ford car from any other aftermarket battery manufacturer or from a petrol station.

Mrs FM.SuppliesGermania s.r.o.

In the latter cases you are using a compatible product. A compatible product should never be mistaken with a "non-original" or "fake" product or "clone". In marketing, some OEM`s, instead of selling their benefits, revert to unfair behaviour by using derogatory terms such as "clones", "non-original" or "fake" for all competitors´products and insinuating that all compatibles are inferior or even illegal in the whole world .

There are good and bad products produced by OEM`s as there are good and bad products produced by aftermarket manufacturers. A compatible product is an original product i.e.originally manufactured by its own manufacturer and marketed under his own name to work with or fit into a product, machine or equipment made by another manufacturer. "Non-original", fake or duplicate products are products which deliberately pretend to be another manufacturer´s original product, thus unfairly exploiting that manufacturer`s name and damaging the reputation of the whole industry.

Such dishonest despicable behaviour is not only deplorable but criminal! The word "compatible" should today stand for genuine consumables. More and more new genuine compatible and also remanufactured toner cartridges are now being produced to exacting specifications. This means, their quality, reliability, performance and yield (page count) can be favourably compared to or often deliberately exceed that of the OEM´s products!

In the late 1980´s compatible toner powders became available and some individuals and small start-up companies began to refill cartridges for reuse. This period was known as the drill and fill era . The procedure consisted of merely drilling a hole in the cartridge casing, replenishing the toner supply, and then resealing the hole without checking or renewing any other parts. So "Drill-and-fill" toner cartridges soon became known for unpredictable print quality and yields. Consequently they caused widespread end-user dissatisfaction and many dealers / ISOs reverted to purchasing and selling only new OEM cartridges.

Some consumers, mainly in the very small business sector and in low wage or poor countries, still opt to work with them due to their price advantage. However they are often not well enough informed about the product they are buying.

In 1990 more compatible components became available and many drill-and-fill businesses began referring to themselves as rechargers. In an attempt to win back lost customers, they started to incorporate more stringent quality-control measures, and developed the first industry standards and professional associations. Leading rechargers then became real remanufacturers inspecting (and often replacing) the OPC drum and many other critical-to-function worn parts. So during the 90´s the remanufacturing industry grew exponentially due to its improved quality standards and the growing availability of most such replacement parts.

This resulted in series big enough to warrant investment in compatible moulding forms and thus the advent of new and sometimes even improved plastic parts enabling higher yields or extended universality of their compatibility. So some of these recharging businesses, particularly in large industrialising countries such as China with its enormous market, started to prefer the economy and quality control advantages of assembling huge series of brand new cartridges. More economical mass production evolved into a technologically advanced industry manufacturing completely new uniform compatible cartridges at cheaper cost than for collecting, sorting and individually controlling and recharging unreliably fluctuating supplies of mixed used ones in varying condition.

Attempts, principally by OEM´s seeking to maintain harmful monopolies and prevent this development by often unfounded intimidation and overgeneralised threats and patent wars, can obviously be to no more avail in the long run than they were in the automobile industry.
Unfortunately too many companies trying to undercut each other´s prices with highly questionable quality- control and product declaration procedures and, even worse, criminal fakes still exist and disturb the market.

But today a few large quality-focused companies, principally in Asian countries such as Japan, China and South Korea, now mass produce all the specialised components of toner cartridges for OEM´s and compatibles alike, thus controlling most of the business. A mixture of both first class new genuine rechargeable compatible and good quality remanufactured cartridges at competitive prices are taking an ever increasing share of the market and it is to be hoped that inferior clones, fakes and monopolies will all suffer their due fate.

[Author]

April 8, 2014 at 11:32 AM