Remanufactured Toner Cartridges vs OEM & Compatibles….

What makes sense?

Do you currently use remanufactured toner cartridges or name brand toner cartridges? Should you care whether you use the original, compatible or remanufactured cartridge? Today’s economy has negatively impacted so many businesses, that they have been forced to seek creative ways to reduce expenses and improve the bottom line. Interestingly, if you look at the food industry over the different economic cycles the US economy has faced, in tough times, people switched from name brand foods to the grocers brand, saving on the monthly food budget. What many of those shoppers found was that the grocers brand was pretty good. When the economy improved, the Name Brands found that many of those consumers did not come back, they stayed with the grocers brand. Perhaps now is a time that businesses should compare compatible toner supplies to the name brand. Let’s find out more details so we can make an informed decision!

Compatible and remanufactured toner cartridges may not be the originals, but if they work as well, and they do, and they decrease your cost to print or copy a document, and they do, do you really care? Today’s compatibles provide excellent quality and yield for end users. They are the perfect choice for most general office uses, primarily, printing text. When you print text, you really can’t tell which is the compatible and which is the name brand, and that is exactly the point of why a business should make or at the least consider making the switch. Why would a business pay 50-70% more when there is no visible difference in the print quality?

Defining the types of cartridge should be helpful to you when selecting a company to use. Here are some basic definitions.

New Compatible– These are produced in ISO 9001 and STMC certified factories. Most of these products are made from 100% new parts from start to finish. Quality reused parts are required in some situations. Product quality is equivalent to that of an OEM (name brand original)

Remanufactured– This compatible is also known as a fully remanufactured toner. All damaged and worn parts are replaced to ensure product quality. Most of these cartridges are produced in ISO 9001 and STMC certified factories. Performance and yield are equivalent to an OEM.

Economy– Economy cartridges are considered Grade B-C cartridges. They come with either a brand new drum or an OEM drum that has been through a previous cycle. Used parts that have been graded tend to be used over new parts. These are less expensive cartridges and typically cartridges that are older models with a history of how long parts will last. They work pretty well, but do have a slightly higher defect rate.

Having said that, the compatible and remanufactured cartridge industry is not a zero defect business. This is something the end user should keep in mind. The industry has improved dramatically over the years and typically has a defect rate of less than 2%. As a business, you must ask yourself if you can tolerate an occasional defect if you are saving 50-70%. If you keep a spare, what problems can an occasional defect really cause your business? In defense of the Name Brand, there are applications we feel a compatible and or remanufactured cartridge should not be used. Some examples would be printers who print on plastic plates for their presses. Although some remanufactured cartridges print color nicely, in many cases we recommend the use of only the name brand colors for truer blues, greens, shades of red, etc.  It varies from machines and manufacturers. Many times the compatible toner is great, but the delivery system is not as good as the OEM delivery system. My company found this to be a problem in some copier toners that look more like a tube than an actual cartridge. The manufacturers keep tabs on their defective generics and often change the delivery system, so it is worth checking to see if changes have been made. Your reseller can help you with that information.

When you purchase a printer, copier or multifunction device you are likely to spend four to five times the cost of the device on toner supplies. Alternative toner supplies can save you thousands of dollars. When you purchase a remanufactured cartridge you save about 3 quarts of oil that is used to make a new cartridge. When you think of the hundreds of millions of cartridges made each year, recycling really makes you a much greener individual or business. You keep non-destructible plastic and steel parts out of landfills, and that is good for everyone.

There are many remanufacturers making compatible toners today. Some are still made in little garage factories and some are made in huge factories both in the USA as well as Asia and Mexico. You still have the drill and fill operations that simply refill the toner hopper with toner and don’t replace any parts such as seals, mag rollers, drums, cleaning blades. Parts wear out and when they are not replaced you get cartridges that leak excessive amounts of toner, you get smudgy prints, you can wear out fusers ( the part that heats and melts the toner onto the page) prematurely by using a low grade toner or even worse, waste toner mixed with new toner. Many factories are trying to produce cartridges at lower and lower price points. This is wonderful, but when factories start to mix old waste toner with new toner you will start to see poorer quality prints and perhaps even premature life of fusers. The lesson here is; the super low priced toners can only get to that price point one way, through the use of inferior supplies or by not replacing the worn parts as often. Be wary of extremely low priced toners. Just remember, you can give a money back guarantee, but it won’t cover the wear and tear on the integral parts of your printer or copier such as expensive fusers.

How do you stay clear of poorly remanufactured toners? Look for companies that offer a strong warranty. If the company isn’t willing to give a money-back guarantee, why use them. Look for a reseller that has been in the business for a number of years and understands the different grades of toner cartridges produced by manufacturers. Look for a manufacturer that strives for higher quality by implementing manufacturing procedures that qualify for an ISO 9001 or better standards. (ISO stands for Industry Standards Organization) It won’t assure a product to be 100% free of defects, but it certainly improves the quality if followed with integrity. You also want a company that allows its products to be tested by independent labs. These labs test for quality, yield, and reliability and benchmark the results against the Name Brand product. Look for the certification seals in the literature or on the box. It is interesting to note that firms like Xerox and IBM are now remanufacturing other companies toner cartridges and selling them at premium prices because of the IBM and Xerox name. If you don’t want to concern yourself with these issues, just pick a reputable reseller.

We think compatibles and remanufactured toner cartridges are wonderful cost-effective alternatives to high priced name brand toners. If a company is willing to stand behind the product 100%, then we think your experience with these alternatives will be an excellent one.

About the author: Mike Farrell is President and owner of Malvern Group Cartridge Services, Inc . He founded Malvern Group Cartridge Services, Inc. in 1995 . He has been involved in the startup of a toner remanufacturing company in 1992 and has seen the industry positively evolve and grow tremendously over the last 20 years.

© 2015 Malvern Group Cartridge Services, Inc.