123 Refills has been conducting a poll of casual internet users to see what they think of OEM (original brand) cartridges - are they overpriced? Or do they offer value for money?
With the various marketing spins out there, one would think that consumers opinion could be easily affected. HP has invested a good sum to promote its "ink amnesty" marketing campaign, for example, whereby it claims that 3rd party ink suppliers offer inferior products. They have also commissioned a "study" to prove that OEM HP ink and toner is better value than remanufactured ink or toner supplies. Lexmark commissioned a similar study a couple of years ago incidentally, which (probably embarrassingly to Lexmark) found that original Lexmark inks fail a significant percent of the time!
Without digressing too much, lets zero in on what consumers really think. Now, agreed, our study is not a scientific one, and could be skewed by the visitors that land on our blog site (including our customers), and the number of voters is around 60 currently (which allows for a higher margin of error), however the results are trending quite clearly... over 90% of respondents are saying that OEM cartridges are overpriced. It is also important to note that our website offers OEM cartridges for sale alongside remanufactured cartridges, and we do sell a lot of OEM cartridges, so our users are not necessarily biased towards "only" remanufactured cartridges.
What do you think? Vote to the right of the page and let everyone know what you think... are OEM cartridges overpriced? Or do they offer value for money?
With the various marketing spins out there, one would think that consumers opinion could be easily affected. HP has invested a good sum to promote its "ink amnesty" marketing campaign, for example, whereby it claims that 3rd party ink suppliers offer inferior products. They have also commissioned a "study" to prove that OEM HP ink and toner is better value than remanufactured ink or toner supplies. Lexmark commissioned a similar study a couple of years ago incidentally, which (probably embarrassingly to Lexmark) found that original Lexmark inks fail a significant percent of the time!
Without digressing too much, lets zero in on what consumers really think. Now, agreed, our study is not a scientific one, and could be skewed by the visitors that land on our blog site (including our customers), and the number of voters is around 60 currently (which allows for a higher margin of error), however the results are trending quite clearly... over 90% of respondents are saying that OEM cartridges are overpriced. It is also important to note that our website offers OEM cartridges for sale alongside remanufactured cartridges, and we do sell a lot of OEM cartridges, so our users are not necessarily biased towards "only" remanufactured cartridges.
What do you think? Vote to the right of the page and let everyone know what you think... are OEM cartridges overpriced? Or do they offer value for money?
