Published October 2004

Printer Ink Source:
Everett shop fills niche for refilled cartridges

Snohomish County Business Journal/JOHN WOLCOTT Mike Scanes has more than 100 different inks for a variety of printers at his new downtown Everett business, Printer Ink Source, which saves businesses and the general public money by refilling used printer cartridges.

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

One of the newest businesses on Colby Avenue in downtown Everett — Printer Ink Source at 2729 Colby Ave. — is out front in one of the newest “hot” markets in America: marketing low-cost, refilled ink cartridges for ink-jet and photo printers for businesses and the general public.

But price isn’t the biggest factor creating Mike Scanes’ sales right now, it’s education.

“Most people don’t realize their ink cartridges can be professionally refilled,” Scanes said. “That’s one of the toughest challenges I have, is letting people know that they can refill a typical $35 or $40 ink cartridge for $14 or $15. They just don’t even think about it.”

Once people do understand, though, it doesn’t take them long to see the big difference is in the price, while the quality of the printing remains the same.

“But even some of those who realize you can refill ink cartridges five to six times before they wear out fear things like ruining their printer with the refilled cartridges or not getting the same color quality,” he said.

“Actually, most cartridges work fine, just as they did before they were refilled. The colors are as good as the originals because we buy our ink from the same companies that sell ink to Hewlett-Packard, Canon, Epson, Lexmark and others. I have more than 100 ink colors that match cartridges for a number of popular printers. Same ink,” he said.

Still, there can be cartridge failures — he anticipates 2 percent of the cartridges he refills won’t work — but there are also failures with cartridges from the big companies. Scanes, however, will replace refilled cartridges that won’t work properly.

“The electrical contacts on the print heads can get damaged, excess ink from printing can sometimes get contaminated, but, in general, these cartridges can be refilled several times at a great savings to the consumer,” he said.

Although mail-order and Internet-based firms have marketed refilled ink cartridges for years, storefront outlets are still rare. Scanes is the first ink cartridge retailer in Snohomish County. In fact, no other refilling businesses are closer than the Northgate Mall — where the “store” is actually a kiosk.

The growth of the relatively new “refilling” market is evident, however, in the recent announcement by Cartridge World of Adelaide, Australia, for plans to open 100 franchise stores in the Northwest in the next three years, including 55 in Washington, 35 in Oregon and 10 in Idaho.

Ed Horowitz, vice president of sales and marketing for the company’s Northwest expansion, said the first regional store opened in Boise in July, a Kennewick store opened in August and a Portland store was planned to open in September. Locally, he said, franchises are being negotiated for Woodinville, Bellevue and Seattle’s University District.

Franchises involve an investment of about $120,000 for fees, supplies, inventory, store buildout and two weeks of training in California. But Scanes, a Cascade High School graduate, wanted no part of that. After layoffs by Pearson Digital Learning cost him his regional sales position after 15 years, he decided to maintain his independence from the corporate world by taking his own training, stocking his own store and opening it in May.

“So far, it’s been going very well,” he said, “except for being (able) to find as many empty cartridges as I want so I can keep a supply of inks stocked for customers who don’t have used ones for filling or want extra ones. The big printer companies try to limit the supply by asking people to return the cartridges to them for recycling, which limits the supply available for businesses like mine.”

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