What would Canon prefer ???

[Fish Chris]

Given only the following two choices;

A) That I buy their printer, and use after market ink and paper, or....

B) That I don't buy their printer at all ???
{in other words, do they not make ANY profit whatsoever from the printer itself ?}

Because that, ladies and gentlemen, are the only choices I am going to give Canon, and / or any other Inkjet printer manufacturers.

It just seems ludicrous to me, to have to spend more on the ink for my printer (maybe a lot more !) than to just find a good, online printing company to do my prints for me. I'm sure there must be some, which do a great job, for very reasonable prices. I haven't looked into this very much.... Yet ! But if these printer companies want to play hard ball, they can just bring it on !

Do any of you believe that if enough of the population decided it was cheaper, and easier to have online, discount printing companies do their prints for them (because they couldn't buy reasonably priced ink for their printers anymore) and then, if sales on both home printers AND ink started to slump because of it, that the printer companies might eventually start to rethink their marketing strategies ?

Sorry for the rant. I'm just pretty put off by the whole Inkjet marketing scene right now :-(

Fish

 

[Grandad35]

Fish,

I would wager that the printer companies sell their printers at cost or even a slight loss with the expectation of very profitable future ink sales. It is in their best business interest to lock up a large customer base with very attractive printer prices, given the profit levels that are made on replacement ink cartridges. This link (http://holyjoe.net/hhc2006/HPInkDetective.pdf) says that HP made more than 80% of its profit last year from ink and toner supplies ($4.5 BILLION is nothing to sneeze at).

I recently bought a spare i9900 so that I can continue to refill my BCI-6 carts for a while. When these printers die and if refilling is not an option on the printers being sold at that time, I will switch to on-line printing for my photos (like you). Photo printing with OEM ink doesn't make economic sense for me.

In the same light, designing and selling low cost printers that can use 3rd party ink doesn't make economic sense to the printer suppliers. If they lost people like you and I as printer customers, they wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

 

[Fish Chris]

Thank you Grandad. As much as I hate to admit it, I have to believe you are right :-(

Well, my iP6000D is only a few months old, but even so, I have been looking into the availability of a replacement head for it. I found this place: http://www.precisionroller.com/prin...t heads&OVKEY=canon print head&OVMTC=standard
......which carries practically every Canon print head in existence.... Except mine ! Go figure :-( Maybe that will be available when and if I need one....

Peace,
Fish

 

[4tunet]

You can purchase a ip6000D Canon OEM Printhead (QY6-0050) $49.95 free shipping
at http://www.inkcessories.com/

I got mine in two days.

4tunet

 

[Fish Chris]

Wow ! That is great news, and thank you very much for that link 4tunet ! I will save that in my "printer" favorites folder right now ! .....and only $49.95 too ! Coool !

Peace,
Fish