ashley karyl
Forum Enthusiast
About ten days ago, I purchased an Epson 2100 from a dealer in London and it appears to perform well so I decided to produce some composites to form a mailer and calculated that I would probably need the following:
4 Matte black
4 Light black
4 Cyan
5 Light cyan
4 Magenta
6 Light magenta
4 yellow
The cost of these inks in the UK came to £438 including VAT. At yesterdays exchange rate this is US $700.
I wrote to a friend in the States who was shocked at how much I was paying so he ran a search at B&H in NYC and discovered that the exact same inks for the US equivalent 2200 which is an identical printer would cost just $310.
I went to the web site of B&H and discovered that even after paying FedEx charges and VAT the saving in ink would still be close to $300!!!
The following morning I called Epson UK to enquire whether those inks would work and was told that although the printers are in fact identical there is a different chip placed in them so that the 2100 will refuse to accept cartridges labelled as 2200 therefore not allowing US imported inks to work. Can you imagine not being able to load a roll of film in your camera or listen to a music cassette just because it comes from the States?
This is blatant protectionism at its very worst and I think its time that photographers, graphic designers and all professionals who use these printers in the UK rebelled as a group against this sort of outrageous exploitation. My local dealer told me that Canon and HP do exactly the same thing and somebody I know calculated that we are actually paying around £800 per litre of ink!!
Perhaps if a lot of us club together we can actually create enough noise for these manufacturers to change their ways so that we pay a fairer price. You may be interested to know that just by quoting this difference to a couple of local dealers in the UK and saying I was going to buy a 2200 from the States, I managed to get the price reduced from £438 to £329 following a few phone calls and I think that they're still making a very good profit. Can you imagine the difference it would make if all professionals started to kick up a fuss?
I would start by advising all UK based photographers to buy the 2200 from the States and then continue to by all ink cartridges there. The first rule of economics is that companies will charge as much as people are prepared to pay. If we start refusing these prices in the UK they will lower them and the same applies to cameras as well.
4 Matte black
4 Light black
4 Cyan
5 Light cyan
4 Magenta
6 Light magenta
4 yellow
The cost of these inks in the UK came to £438 including VAT. At yesterdays exchange rate this is US $700.
I wrote to a friend in the States who was shocked at how much I was paying so he ran a search at B&H in NYC and discovered that the exact same inks for the US equivalent 2200 which is an identical printer would cost just $310.
I went to the web site of B&H and discovered that even after paying FedEx charges and VAT the saving in ink would still be close to $300!!!
The following morning I called Epson UK to enquire whether those inks would work and was told that although the printers are in fact identical there is a different chip placed in them so that the 2100 will refuse to accept cartridges labelled as 2200 therefore not allowing US imported inks to work. Can you imagine not being able to load a roll of film in your camera or listen to a music cassette just because it comes from the States?
This is blatant protectionism at its very worst and I think its time that photographers, graphic designers and all professionals who use these printers in the UK rebelled as a group against this sort of outrageous exploitation. My local dealer told me that Canon and HP do exactly the same thing and somebody I know calculated that we are actually paying around £800 per litre of ink!!
Perhaps if a lot of us club together we can actually create enough noise for these manufacturers to change their ways so that we pay a fairer price. You may be interested to know that just by quoting this difference to a couple of local dealers in the UK and saying I was going to buy a 2200 from the States, I managed to get the price reduced from £438 to £329 following a few phone calls and I think that they're still making a very good profit. Can you imagine the difference it would make if all professionals started to kick up a fuss?
I would start by advising all UK based photographers to buy the 2200 from the States and then continue to by all ink cartridges there. The first rule of economics is that companies will charge as much as people are prepared to pay. If we start refusing these prices in the UK they will lower them and the same applies to cameras as well.