It’s difficult to define today’s average cartridge outsourcer/reseller.
Nearly 9 out of 10 companies selling aftermarket printer cartridges sell at least some outsourced product, according to Recharger Magazine’s annual Outsourcing Survey. This, at least, is a statistical confirmation of what most in the remanufacturing industry have known since OEM hardware introductions began accelerating around the turn of the millennium: it’s mostly impossible to manufacture all the cartridge types that customers demand.
From there, the survey results show the biggest group of outsourcers is companies that also do some in-house production. Which and how much of this group’s cartridge sales are from outsourced units varies as widely as how many different cartridges are available in today’s proliferated market. There is also a strong representation in this year’s survey of 100 percent resellers, some of which are former in-house producers. In total, it makes for a crowded reseller channel and strong marketplace for outsource partners, another group the survey polled.
The Outsourcing Survey, taken at World Expo in August 2007 by 187 respondents (despite the survey being conducted in 2007 the results in this article are labeled 2008), attempts to document the printer cartridge reselling trends of the imaging industry aftermarket. Respondents on average have been in business for 11 years and have 291 employees. Fifty-eight percent of respondents are from the U.S. and 42 percent are headquartered outside the U.S. On average, 58 percent of sales for respondents are to end users and 42 to resellers.
...This article is available in its entirety to RECHARGER Magazine subscribers. Full articles are available six months after their original print. Subscribe today.
This article will be available online on 08/01/2008
