EVER WONDER WHY INK COSTS SO MUCH?

摘要

RINTER MAKERS HAVE long known that ink is as good as gold.Just ask the folks at market leader Hewlett-Packard Co.Analysts say ink and toner supplies made up more than 50% of fiscal 2004 profits for the computer giant,although they brought in less than a quarter of the company's 80 billion in sales.But now a new breed of fast-growing upstarts is out to crash the profit party.Across America,retail stores are cropping up in strip malls among the Gaps and Wai-Marts where consumers and small-business owners can go to have empty printer and toner cartridges refilled-usually for half of what it costs to buy a new one.The largest of these outfits,Cartridge World,based in Australia,just passed 1,000 stores worldwide,and its North America affiliate has opened 275 stores in the U.S.since mid-2003.The company is signing up a new U.S.franchisee daily and plans to top 3,000 stores in the country by early next decade.