WALGREEN ENTERS INK CARTRIDGE REFILL BUSS

[Anonymous]

Walgreen enters ink cartridge refill business
Walgreen
Co. , the nation’s largest drugstore chain, will roll out print
cartridge refill stations at 100 Chicago-area stores, including a dozen
in Northwest Indiana, in the next two weeks in hopes of sharpening its
edge in the office supply market.
For
half the price of a new cartridge, customers can bring their used
printer cartridges to refill stations at stores’ photo counters where
an Ink-O-Dem machine will clean and refill them in less than 15 minutes.
The
refill stations have been in operation on a test basis in Green Bay and
Des Moines and in one Chicago Walgreen store north of downtown.
Ink
cartridges can cost as much as $50, while the prices of printers
themselves can be as low as $30. Walgreen will charge 50 percent of the
retail price of new cartridges to refill old ones. For models that the
machine is unable to service, the chain will provide comparable new
cartridges at the refill rate.
While a Walgreen spokeswoman said the
service evolved in response to customer demand, the company hopes the
stations will spotlight their office supply offerings.
“It will
drive awareness to the overall category,” spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce
said. “Customers may not have expected Walgreens to offer ink
cartridges in general.”
Test markets with the refill stations have
seen printer cartridge sales grow overall, according to Bruce. The
company would not reveal how much money the stations, manufactured by
McHenry-based TonerHead, are costing to install nor how much revenue
they expect the ink refills to generate.
A spokesperson for computer
giant Hewlett Packard, a leader manufacturing printer cartridges, said
the quality of the refills does not compare with new product. “We’ve
found that customers who opt for less reliable alternatives may find
them with cartridges that don’t work after they get home,” said Tuan
Tran, vice president of marketing at the company.
The refill
service, however, will also likely appeal to the environmentally
conscious. In North America more than 350 million nonbiodegradable
cartridges are thrown away in landfills each year, according to the
federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The refill service is not
unique to Walgreen. Last week OfficeMax, Inc. announced the launch of
its own ink refill stations at 900 stores across the country, and
national chain Cartridge World has opened more than 20 stores in
Illinois and Indiana that specialize in cartridge refills in the past
year.
In December, the company opened a new store in Munster, owned
and operated by Sam and Marisa Giannakis, and has serviced more than
1,200 cartridges since then.
Both OfficeMax and Cartridge World charge 30 to 50 percent less than the price of new cartridges.
Chris
Gallagher, who opened Chicago’s first Cartridge World more than a year
ago, now operates two stores in Lincoln Park and Lakeview. He estimated
his stores have refilled 25,000 cartridges in that time.
“We welcome
the fact that OfficeMax and Walgreen are entering the market because it
increases the knowledge to the public that there is an alternative to
buying brand-new, expensive cartridges,” Gallagher said.
He said
Cartridge World’s services stand out because the specialty stores stock
thousands of inks versus the handful that other chains offer.
But Walgreen believes their accessibility will put them above the competition.
“The strongest benefit for us, as always, is going to be the convenience factor,” Bruce said.

[Author]

April 10, 2006 at 10:47 AM