I had a chance to speak with the people of PrintCountry, one of the sponsors for our 2006 Photograph of the Year Contest, and ask them a little bit about their business, as well as printing in general. There are some great tips in here for anyone that does printing, be it photo printing, document printing, or even if you create and print out your own magazines or something - choosing the right printer (and therefore the right print cartridges) is an important choice that every photographer has to make. Without further adieu…

PrintCountry has been doing business since 2000. Tell me a little bit about how the company got started, and where it is going.

The whole goal of starting PrintCountry was to provide consumers affordable printer cartridges and other inkjet & laser printer related supplies. Contrary to what most people would think, as a society we are using more and more paper everyday. Thanks all the hardware and software applications coming to the market, inkjet and laser printers, multifunction printing equipment becoming much more affordable, we end up printing more. However cost of doing so does not really decrease unless consumers use more affordable printer supplies. That’s where we come in. At PrintCountry, our goal is to help consumer decrease their cost of printer ownership and cost per page printed while making sure that they do not have quality problems.

What products are offered at PrintCountry.com, and what are the benefits of buying printer ink from PrintCountry instead of a brick and mortar big-box store?

At PrintCountry we offer over 4,000 different products for over 6,000 different printers. If you walk in into a brick and mortar store like Office Depot, Staples or Office Max, the number of items that you can find would be (and this is the maximum possible in the biggest one) about 500. Also beyond just the sheer number of products we offer, affordability of the alternative products we provide makes a huge difference. Most brick-and-mortar stores do not carry compatible or remanufactured replacement printer cartridges for most printers. In most cases, due to stores close relationship with OEM brands like HP, Dell and Epson, they do not carry quality compatible products that are only a fraction of the cost of branded printer cartridges.

On average, our prices are about 50% less than big box stores and we do that we don’t sacrificing quality but focusing on smart product sourcing.

What are OEM products, and what are the differences between OEM products and non-brand products?

I would say there are two main differences: Brand and Price. The situation with OEM printer supplies products versus non-brand printer cartridge products are pretty much like shopping for a brand shirt like Tommy Hilfiger versus a similar shirt from Wallmart. For most of us the difference in the quality of the shirt is minimal while the price is not. Depending on the brand, model and type of the compatible cartridges, the quality of compatible cartridges change but in general you might be looking at the same cartridge plastic, same ink inside but just a brand on the box.

At PrintCountry, we are committed to quality products and good customer service (our tagline of “Your Happy Ink Store” is there for a real reason). When choosing to carry a new compatible cartridge, we focus on trying to find the best source and make sure that we do not have quality problems. We understand that customers have a range of choices when they shop for their printer supplies so we want to be a dependable source with easy ordering and friendly service.

Tell me a bit about your Printer Cartridge Recycling Program.

Unfortunately, inkjet cartridge, laser printer cartridge and cell phone are not recycled enough. In fact, only 5% of these used or empty printer ink cartridges and cell phones are being recycled so the landfills are full of them. At PrintCountry.com we are trying to get people recycle more of those printer supplies and while doing that also financially benefit from them. Currently we have 100s of recycled cartridge models that we can collect and buyback from customers in return for discounts on new cartridges. We have a dedicated person on staff that tries to increase that number of cartridges and find new ways and methods we can help the environment.

What tips do you have for amateur and professional photographers regarding buying ink for the printers, and getting the most out of their ink?

At PrintCountry.com we have many professional photographers as our customers. I know that for most, the printing is a major part of expenses for photographers (be amateur or professional) . Depending on the type of printer and paper that photographers use, they might not be able to find cheaper alternatives (remanufactured cartridges or compatible inkjet cartridges) that have professional grade photo printing quality. But what most of our professional photographer customers do is to use the lower grade and much cheaper alternatives for their draft work or everyday printing and only print with more expensive OEM cartridges when they are printing a final product. We are told that they can save quite a bit without really sacrificing from any quality at all on delicate projects.

Another suggestion I have applies not only to photographers but pretty much all of us that print. Know what the printer you are buying uses. For most, printer buying can be an immediate decision where you see the printer, you find a deal and you end up buying it right there without too much research. Falling printer prices make it easier to make that mistake. So it is $50, $100, $150 dollars, and you think it is not a big deal. But in fact, most printers end up costing twice or three times of their cost in printer cartridges even in the first year you buy. The printer you have becomes a commitment, and you end up spending a lot for it in terms of cartridges and photo paper.

So I suggest that everybody (especially this applies a lot more to photographers that print a lot) to know the cartridges of the printers that they are about to buy. In fact, only buy printers that already have affordable printer cartridges (or at least high quality generic and remanufactured cartridges if OEMs are not affordable at all). Most of the time when you buy a brand new printer with a brand new cartridge model, it can take up to one year before there is compatible products for that printer model. So before they sell you that new printer, go to our site and search that printer model to see if there is any affordable cartridge for that model. If not you can always drop as a line and will be more than happy to tell you what we think about that new printer model and if we are going to sell anything compatible in the near future. All the time we have our customers with that type of printer buying questions.

Understanding the concept of true cost of ownership of printer is important: This is how we calculate cost of ownership of a printer: “number of prints per month” times “cost of the printer cartridge” divided by “the yield of the printer cartridge”.

For example, lets assume that you will print 40 photos per month using a photo printer’s ink cartridge set that yields about 60 photos and a set of cartridges cost $80 for the genuine brand ink cartridges (assuming no compatibles exist in the market). The monthly “cost of ownership” is then (40 photos) x ($80) / 60 pages = $53 / month.

The printer that I got this example from is a Canon PIXMA IP1600 (very popular new Canon Photo Printer that does not have compatible products yet). So what is this printer’s street price now: $40-65.

This explains why you should do your homework about the photo printer model before you go ahead and buy your printer.

One last tip for all. Please go beyond the usual suspects of HP & Dell (and even Epson Printers) printer brands when you are looking to buy a new printer. Canon & Samsung and Brother also have pretty good inkjet and laser printers that are affordable and have also premium print quality and available alternative printer supplies.