ConeColor Inks

I have been approached and asked if I would like to be a UK reseller for ConeColor inks.

The proposal which I have received seems very fair and straightforward,

My only concern at this time is if there is a UK market out there willing to change from their current inks over to Cone Color.

Any thoughts ?

Ian

Why would somebody change his supplier - for reasons pf pricing, performance, the new supplier has something unique other suppliers don't carry or just for a tryout

Ian Barber said:

I have been approached and asked if I would like to be a UK reseller for ConeColor inks.

The proposal which I have received seems very fair and straightforward,

My only concern at this time is if there is a UK market out there willing to change from their current inks over to Cone Color.

Any thoughts ?

Ian

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Ian I know nothing about the third party ink market, or the UK retail scene for this product.

Could be an opportunity, or a thinly veiled pyramid marketing scheme. For you to find out.

My advice, which we have already established is worth nothing, is to have a frank talk with Martin of Octoink. He is in the ink reselling business in the UK, and appears to be successful. Potentially you could be competitors so it would be understandable if he is reluctant to talk. However there are sufficient areas of mutual interest for a fruitful dialogue to be beneficial.

Good Luck.

RS

Roy Sletcher said:

Could be an opportunity, or a thinly veiled pyramid marketing scheme. For you to find out.

Click to expand...

This is my only concern. I used to run an ink business back in 1995, competition was tough then and the internet was in its infancy so you can imagine what its like now. The Cone Inks to me are aimed at a niche market mainly targeting people who perform high volume prints.

Some market research is likely to keep me busy over the coming days / weeks I think

Ian Barber said:

This is my only concern. I used to run an ink business back in 1995, competition was tough then and the internet was in its infancy so you can imagine what its like now. The Cone Inks to me are aimed at a niche market mainly targeting people who perform high volume prints.

Some market research is likely to keep me busy over the coming days / weeks I think

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Interesting! - I would not have characterized it a a NICHE product

I did a reasonable amount of investigation of the Cone inks which replace the Epson Ultracolor K3 inkset. There is a lot of competition in this segment of the market and my reading of the Cone product was that it is more expensive than most third party equivalents, but with several unique benefits, namely encapsulated pigment technology same as or similar to the OEM inks. Extremely good colour match with the OEM ink and anecdotally good light fastness. Mark McCormac of Ardbarg (sp) dissess the colour fastness, and John Cone vehemently defends his product - claiming the I* measurements made by Ardberg are defective.

I got printed colour test images from John Cone on matte and satin paper and was very very impressed. No question it is popular in North America. I would have switched to it if I hadn`t seen Joe Toolmans videos on refilling with OEM ink.

I dont want to put words in other peoples mouth, but I know 3Dogs is a user and supporter of the Cone product.

rs

Though I do use harvested OEM EPSON K3 inks I have to say that from my direct experience, nothing else I've use even comes close to OEM in terms of color and glossiness as CONE inks. Do I use them regularly? No. I can get OEOM Epson for about the same price as lower priced good 3rd party inks. If they were a bit lower in cost I would likely use CONE exclusively.

Joe

Its good opportunity to give another market place to get rid of unique one so we get more quality and competition, does CONE ink for all brands ? what its difficulties that make it more familiar than other ink ?

If I was offered it in Aust. I would have to think about it.................done that.............GO!.......maybe, but having had a Retail Fishing Shop and gotten OVER customers BIG time.....I am not sure I could tolerate Joe Public again in any shape or form.

In England my business background says look at your sell price vs buy...shipping, packaging, and customer service issues eg. Legislated Consumer stuff for the EU
as that is likely your main market.......
On the surface a grand opportunity........keep diging, and dig,dig DIG!! because competition is not the only challenge you would face.

If you had all of that sorted and needed to add a complimentary line to your existing........you could do worse

There was another thread running on Cone colors

http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/glossiness-of-inkjetfly-pigment-compared-to-conecolor.7590/

and other links to those inks mentioned

https://inkquisitor.wordpress.com/reviews/ink-jet-fly-ima-2436-v3-inks-for-the-epson-3800/


I must admit, that I was searching around for some 'decent' pigment inks for a while, it's not easy, it's the gloss, the black level, the gamut, the bronzing to look at, and that's all parameters for which you don't have a numerical parameter - o.k. for the black level and gamut you do, and what it makes even more difficult - it's the effects I get from different types of papers and surfaces, really strange/funny effects. I have one sort of semiglossy paper on which cyan appears quite matte, thus with a strongly visible gloss difference to other colors - what a surprise - that paper is unusable, I have another paper, glossy - which gives quite an even gloss for all colors, and black is barely bronzing but the black level of the photo black ink is visibly higher - which shows up as well in the profile data. That paper is loosing contrast into the dark, so is only for limited use so far. I have tested the new Epson P800 photo black on this paper, that really makes a difference, with a much better black level. I have not found a compatible ink so far, Lyson only states that such ink is pending for availability. I have another semiglossy paper which gives good black levels with various inks but let almost all colors get a colored shine, that paper can only be used for some artistic color experiments, or be used with dye inks.

I have tested over time about 10 different 3rd party brands of inks available in Europe, on various different papers, but no Cone ink, no Inkjetfly ink, I cannot comment on those.

So it's not just the inks, it's the inks in combination with a particular paper to get good prints which makes it difficult, if not impossible to give some general recommendations.

I agree with ISF above. Too many variables come in along with the ink.

I have been playing with the Cone K7 Selenium and some Claria ink out of an airbrush onto Red River Metallic. That paper has an odd magenta carrier that seems to influence the L*a*b* values which makes a set tone of ink not exactly linear in applying from a set black tone of ink: i.e. lighter values of ink cut from the BK will show a different tint if the paper's carrier (magenta) comes into play.

What some call glossy isn't compared to another brand either. The Cone uses their Gloss Optimizer even for their PK (Photo Black Gloss) of their K7 Selenium against their Matte also in that series, but it ain't glossy at all when matched against the Claria which is car-paint super glossy. Plus, the Cone is subject to differential gloss too which is maddening on glossy papers like the RR Metallic. At an angle, all sorts of DG is present and doesn't seem to matter how many runs through the Gloss Optimizer addresses that.

I'll attach a Cone vs. Claria shot of sprayed ink showing the gloss from an overhead fluorescent, and then one of the GO covered (GO seems to push up the B* to the yellowish side a bit.). I will say the spectrometer reads a nice neutral black tint for the Cone when used with about a 30K GO overcoat though. But the gloss isn't there, it's more of a satin with Cone. The Claria has a greenish/cyan tint in their BK, and maybe there so they can apply a bit of magenta and or yellow while printing in a commercial printer to neutralize it. Too hard to come up with a red ink so they error on the side of what's available in the commercial printer it came out of (4 color CMYK ink.) and use the M and Y inks to generate a neutral BK profile.

Will.