The “Razor and Blades” Business Model

[Gareth]

Interesting article about the history of Gillette’s DE razor and how the business model he created still stands to this day:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39132802

Gareth

[drmoss_ca]

I get so angry every time I use an inkjet printer. Generally it starts by telling me I must replace cartridges that are new, then it runs a few cleaning cycles to waste some ink. With some paper misfeeds, and some user errors in finding all the settings to get the layout as desired I end up using about six times the amount of ink and paper as required. I'd put it down to my own stupidity, were it not for the fact that all of this is deliberate and an extension of King Gillette's plan. For good quality large format photo printers, it is cheaper to buy a new printer complete with a set of inks than it is to buy a new set of inks for the printer you have. The printer is essentially given away, and it is the ink (esp. the wasted ink) that makes Epson money. GRRR!

C.

[brothers]

No disagreement here. I wonder how much the bulk liquid ink that is eventually squirted into the cartridges actually costs to manufacture. Probably just a few pennies.

[jar]

Before Gillette the model was created by a couple other people; Captain Emerson who was an early adopter of the world wide marketing through the general media for his product (BromoSeltzer) and William Painter who invented the single use bottle cap (Crown Cork & Seal) that allowed automated bottle capping and cut down on theft and pilfering since once opened it could not be recapped.

[Gareth]

Chris, that’s why I ended up buying a b&w laser printer instead of yet another inkjet. I buy a new toner cartridge every 18 months or so for about £5 off Amazon which prints around 3000 A4 pages. The printer (a Brother) itself is at least 5 years old now and was cheap enough, but is still going strong.

I just live without colour printing now and never find it a problem. On the rare occasion I need to print a photograph, say, I just drop in to Costco or Asda and use one of their machines.

Gareth

[Pauldog]

I do the same thing with a vintage $25 HP 2200d laser printer. It's old enough not to have a chip on the cartridge that newer printers check for authentic brand name toner. (For light duty, I've had good luck with the HP 1012, but you might have more trouble getting a driver for newer systems.)

But Chris is printing photos, and needs color. It's fairly expensive to maintain a color laser printer, but if you use it enough, it will probably pay for itself. About the only thing I know about color laser printers is that HP is probably not the best brand.

One huge advantage of toner vs. ink is that the toner only depletes if you use it, and has an extremely long shelf life.