Have you heard about the razor-razor blade strategy? This is also known as freebie marketing wherein one item is sold at a low price or almost given away for free in order to boost sales of complementary goods. This is evident in the printer industry where inkjet cartridgesare supplied free of cost with the inkjet printers at the time of purchase, but then compelling people to make repeated purchases at higher price.

Printer manufacturers have utilized greater efforts to ensure that their printers users are unable to get along with lower cost third-party ink cartridges and refilling cartridge. The reason is that the printers are often sold at lower price to generate sales of proprietary cartridges which will generate maximum profits for the printer manufacturing company over the lifetime of the printer. Indeed, in some cases, the cost of replacing ink consumables or toner may even exceed the cost of buying new equipment with the ink or toner cartridgesprovided free, although the provided cartridges are only partially filled to let you get started.

This is their business strategy to make money, and they make it over and over with each branded ink cartridge is sold. But there are people who are smart enough and do not fall into their bait and hook; they get their printer cartridges from a third party. For this they pay much less money for a similar cartridge with the similar performance and output. An online search will show you that there are many people who are happy with such affordable options.