According to Griffin Hampson of Cartridge Network, HP has raised the prices of a number of ink and laser toner cartridges.
As cartridge retailer Hampson claims in the Portland Tribune’s Insiders section, HP has increased the prices of 300 ink and laser toner cartridges by between 5 and 10 percent, effective from 1 December 2017. This new pricing “was immediately implemented by the Office Depots of the world” and followed on from “similar annual price increases on HP cartridges in recent years.”
As well as citing “HP’s obvious desire to increase revenue and margin on installed printers”, Hampson revealed that there is some speculation that the price hike is an effort to pressure both businesses and consumers to upgrade their printers to a newer model.
However, the purchase of new printers “rarely reduces the cost of printing” and “perpetuates users to fall into the trap of using “low yield” or “standard” replacement cartridges”, according to Hampson.
In addition, he reveals that, as a result of the increase in pricing, the “Office Depots of the world” also mark-up their in-store cartridge pricing “by several dollars over their listed web pricing”, which most customers do not realise.
