PRINTITRESELLER.UK 41 Navigating a market saturated with poorly remanufactured alternative products both environmentally and functionally. The reason that these newcomers to the market are able to provide such competitively priced OEM-alternative products is due to the complete lack of investment into research and development, engineering, quality, testing and standards – all things necessary to make a high quality OEM alternative product. These companies fall under the illusion that producing remanufactured toners is a simple case of filling a used cartridge with toner and resealing it, however, this lack of investment comes at a cost – not to them, but to the end-user, once the product inevitably fails. What advice would you give to a customer who is new to the OEMalternative market? To those who are looking to buy remanufactured products; do your research, and to those who have had a bad experience in the past; there is no ‘one size fits all’ standard for OEMalternative copier toner cartridges that can be used to judge the quality of our industry’s products – even OEMs themselves have varying standards and levels of quality – don’t let one remanufacturers poorly made product cloud your judgement over remanufactured products as a whole. A quality supplier of remanufactured products like ECS goes further than a simple ISO9001 standard (which we do have) to justify the quality, performance and reliability of their products. We’ve spent decades perfecting our award winning formula for our cartridges, which includes having our own in-house quality systems and research and development departments who have developed our own unique standards in order for our products to be approved for sale on the worldwide marketplace. After all, there is far more to a true remanufactured product than simply filling and resealing it. You get what you pay for when it comes to remanufactured products – don’t buy cheap, buy value. Director of ECS, Chris Fink, joined us to discuss the ever-changing dynamic of the copier industry, market trends, and what YOU should be looking out for when it comes to OEM-alternative toner cartridges and components. Could you put into words how the last 12 months has been from a remanufacturer and distributors perspective? Turbulent, unstable, but always improving. Over the last year we’ve seen the gradual recovery of our industry following the challenges that came with a global pandemic, as well as new obstacles that have presented themselves in response to ongoing political instability in the UK. While the market hasn’t returned to what it was prior to the pandemic, the resumption and improvement of business operations has certainly had positive impacts on worldwide shipment levels of photocopiers and multi-function printers, with the demand for consumables increasing in corresponding fashion. With the copier market entering a new era, this has, as expected, changed the way that we’re operating, both in terms of responding to a positive increase in demand for remanufactured products as dealerships, office equipment suppliers and end-users looking to find better value for their money without sacrificing levels of quality, but also negatively as the market has been flooded with New Build Cartridge suppliers (NBC) and belowpar remanufacturers, whose products negatively impact the reputation of businesses like ours who provide premium remanufactured toners and components. What issues do these newcomers to the market provide? Unknown remanufacturers and NBC suppliers who have never previously supplied copier toners are able to provide products that are very competitively priced, attracting the interest of customers who are looking for cheaper, alternative options to OEM cartridges, and rightly so, however, the majority of customers are unaware of the risks that these products pose, Chris Fink BUSINESS BRIEFING +44 (0)1427 337 349 www.ecs-uk-ltd.co.uk Remanufactured Toners For Those Who Demand Quality, Performance and Reliability A Fully Compliant Service For Your WEEE Waste www.greener-side.co.uk
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDUxNDM=