It's Amazing What Retailers Will Tell You

Profit Magnet

Printer ink is big business, a big attachment and a big-time moneymaker!  The supreme goal of store personnel is to ring up extra ink with your printer. The profit squeezed into these little cartridges is extraordinary, for the manufacturer as well as the retailer.  It is important to the retailer that you walk out with at least one extra cartridge.

If you buy your printer where a salesperson helps you expect a sales pitch to buy extra ink.  The salesperson may try to convince you that you need to take home an extra cartridge of ink because the new printer only comes with a 'starter' cartridge.  The misleading statement begins when the salesperson says, "the starter cartridge will last anywhere from a few pages to a couple of hundred.  Would you like one or two extra cartridges to take home with you?"

Remember, the goal is to get you out the door with ink attached to the printer sale.  As stated in the previous post ink is one of four high-margin attachments stores track with each printer sale.  So a printer with ink is 25%, with a cable is 50%, with paper is 75% and an extended warranty plan makes it 100%.  The goal is 55%!

Each category (like a printer) has a goal that each store must achieve. A percentage report is ready each morning and store personnel are aware of what item to push.  Some retailers manually track attachment sales throughout the day so salespeople know how hard to twist your arm toward the evening.

If you easily succumb to pressure then I suggest you shop early in the day.

The point is to do your own homework.  Do not rely on false information. Better yet, have the salesperson look it up for you right there in the store. Find out which ink cartridge the printer you want to buy uses.  Then do a Google search to know how many pages each cartridge will print, the price of the cartridge and if the new printer comes with a full cartridge or not.  (By the way, most of the new inkjet printers come with a 'full' ink cartridge.)

If the store is priced right and you do a moderate amount of printing then an extra cartridge is a good idea.  If the price of ink is out of line, then get your ink somewhere else.

Tomorrow's post on 'ink' may shock you!

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The definition of a chump:

a gullible person, a sucker; someone easily taken advantage of, the target of a scam.

Learn from a former salesperson and trainer how salespeople drive sales. Learn how to keep more money in your pocket where it belongs! There are two ends of every sales stick!  One end cries 'chump.'  The other end boasts 'champ.'  I know which end of the stick I want to be.  How about you?