John Clogg wrote:
>HP and others set the price of a new printer at or below the
>break-even point in anticipation of future cartridge sales.  If a
printer
>manufacturer (e.g. Bic) needed to make their profit only from new
printer
>sales, the price of the printer would have to be considerably higher.
>
>Another dodge HP uses with the cheaper printers sold under the Apollo
name
>is to include only a black cartridge with the printer.  If you want
color,
>you immediately need to buy a color cartridge, which nearly doubles the
>initial investment in some cases.

It's called a "loss leader" and the common wisdom in marketing circles
appears to be that it's one of the best ways to lure in customers.  I
think it's stupid to fall for such tactics, but the supply of stupid
people seems endless;  and hence the supply of folks willing to separate
them from their money is almost as endless.  Similarly, a state lottery
is a tax on people who can't do math.  This also is the source of
incentive for spammers and pyramid schemes.

You are welcome to consider this my plea to fight (perhaps futilely) to
minimize the incentive for such business practices by comparing real
costs when making a purchase choice and voting with your wallet by
making the smartest choices you can.  For example, when buying a printer
compare more than the initial purchase cost by considering how long and
how often you can reasonably expect to use the printer and how many
consumables you may consume in that period, and figure in the
anticipated cost of those consumables in the total cost of the printer.

Sometimes it pays to spend a little more up front.  The good news in
this situation is that the "throw-away printer pricing" means there is
very little investment holding you to a vendor who uses this model.
--
Jeff "speaking only for myself" Woods
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