<< Previous   of   Next >> Snohomish County Business Journal/Dave Clark  (click to enlarge) Mike Scanes offers a wide variety of competetively priced new and remanufactured ink cartridges at his business in Everett. Snohomish County Business Journal/ Dave Clark  (click to enlarge) Mike Scanes illustrates how printer manufacturers reduce the cost of their products by giving consumers less ink.

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CONTACT SCBJ John Wolcott, Editor jwolcott@scbj.com Dave Clark, Assistant Editor dclark@scbj.com

Printer Ink Source offers simple savings in hard times

By Dave Clark
SCBJ Assistant Editor

People are looking to tighten their budgets anyway they can these days, and Mike Scanes is spreading the word about a simple way to find fast, meaningful savings at his business in Everett.
For five years, Printer Ink Source has helped residents and businesses replace and refill used printer ink and laser toner cartridges at a fraction of the cost of new products offered by big-name manufacturers. With new online purchasing, as well as free delivery in Snohomish County and on larger orders elsewhere, Scanes said it’s never been easier to try his service.
“We offer a way to recycle and cut your expenses, and this is the time to do it,” said Scanes. “The savings are right off your bottom line, so you see them instantly.”
He came up with the idea to start his business when a series of layoffs by Pearson Digital Learning left him without a job after 16 years with the company as a service director for the West region. A graduate of Cascade High School, he found motivation in a 1998 book by Spencer Johnson called “Who Moved My Cheese?” that teaches management tips and provides information about how people can best manage change in their life.
“I didn’t like other people making decisions that run a business into the ground, so I looked at going into doing something different, become my own boss,” he said. “I chose this because it saves people money and was a dream of mine in the recycling aspect of it. We’ve been doing really well and have had a lot of repeat customers.”
Since Printer Ink Source opened at 2729 in Colby Ave. in Everett, the business has grown to support two additional employees, with about 65 percent of its business coming from companies and the rest from individuals. Scanes attempted to manage a second Printer Ink Source location in Stanwood in 2005. However, he overestimated the potential for gross sales in the area, and decided to close the business in June of this year to concentrate on making improvements to his business’s Web site. Customers can now place orders online at www.printerinksource.com, utilizing an enhanced interface to check their order status and more easily locate the cartridge model they’re looking to purchase or refill.
Customers can refill a typical $35 or $40 printer ink cartridge for about $14 or $15 at Printer Ink Source, or a new $100 laser toner cartridges for about $60. Scanes maintains a supply of over 100 different ink colors for a variety of printer brands, such as Canon, Lexmark, Epson, and Hewlett-Packard.
Cartridges can be refilled about five or six times before they wear out, he said, which can result from damage to their printer heads’ electrical contacts, or because of contamination from excess ink. Scanes estimates new and refurbished cartridges have a 2 percent failure rate. Depending on who you buy from, he said you can end up with a product with failure rates of over 50 percent. The key, said Scanes, is to look for someone who is selling a better, more reliable product.
“Big companies like HP and Canon have a quality control process in place that keeps failure rates low,” he said. “On the remanufactured side of the industry, there are so many different companies rebuilding the cartridges you get huge swings in quality and failure rates. In other words, there are great remanufactures that put out a quality product and others that don’t.”
The fact that printer cartridges can be refilled professionally is catching on, but is still widely unknown. Even so, Scanes said printer manufacturers have made attempts in recent years prevent businesses like his from taking root – altering their products and pressuring state legislatures to make it more difficult, and even illegal, for ink cartridges to be reused.
Scanes uses a device to reset seven-pin microchips built into modern ink cartridges, so newer printers will still accept them after they’ve been emptied. Some manufacturers are now making cartridges equipped with nine-pin chips that can’t be reset, he said, while other companies sell printers that tell microchips to burn out after the ink has been used up, rendering them useless.
Scanes said some manufacturers are going an extra step in telling consumers their printer warranty is voided if a remanufactured or refilled cartridge is used. Use of these products and others like them is protected by the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act, he said.
“Why are they making a product that can’t be recycled?” said Scanes. “It should be against the law to intentionally design something so it can only be used once. We have to change the way we think.”
Do-it-yourself refill kits sold online have added to the stigma of reusing printer ink cartridges that has turned a lot of consumers away from the idea, and has caused others to think twice about switching from more expensive OEM cartridges.
“There is more to it than putting ink into a cartridge; you can end up damaging the cartridge or your printer,” said Scanes. “If I see a product with a higher failure rate, I won’t sell it. If the product fails for the customer then it fails for me too. I’m going to weed out those products that will cause problems.”
When a failure does occur in a product sold by Printer Ink Source, Scanes said the customer will receive a replacement cartridge at no cost. If the customer decides they want to select from the business’s inventory of OEM and remanufactured products, they will have the original sale price put toward their new purchase.
“We put out a quality product and we stand behind them,” he said. “We pride ourselves on taking care of our customers. The only unhappy customers are the ones I don’t know about.”
Local companies, schools and nonprofit groups work with Scanes through recycling programs to sell him the empty cartridges he needs to keep his business stocked and to keep the cartridges out of landfills. Although Printer Ink Source doesn’t offer services for large toner cartridges used in many businesses, people can still drop them off so he can ship them out to be reused or recycled. Scanes works with local retailers to help diagnose problems with faulty printers, he said, and frequently receives referrals from Walgreen’s and other stores with fewer options for refilling ink cartridges.
The beauty of small community businesses like Printer Ink Source is the supportive role they play in the local community, said Scanes.
“If people are buying off the Internet, they’re shipping out their dollars somewhere else,” he said. “I employ locally and I support the local economy. If you keep the money here, it can eventually make its way back around to you. I always say, ‘think globally, act and spend locally.’ We have to bring up each community as best we can.”
For more information, visit www.printerinksource.com or call 425-252-8202.