Knowing How Many Ink Cartridges You Should Buy At One Time

2010-03-29

Printer ink cartridges are an expensive investment, often approaching or exceeding the cost of a printer after one or two replacements. However, although they are a substantial expense in any modern business or home, their necessity cannot be denied. While the absence of many other office supplies does not have a large effect on productivity, without printer ink, a business grinds to a halt. Therefore, knowing how many printer ink cartridges to purchase at one time is an important consideration.

There are three ways to analyze your purchase rate to most efficiently buy printer ink. First, consider the printer ink cartridge expiration date. While ink does not expire like food might, it still hardens after months of storage and becomes nonviable for printing. Additionally, individual dyes can separate in the ink over long storage, causing colors to run and preventing proper adhesion to the paper. While the expiration dates vary between different printer cartridge types, it is universally true that if you buy too many cartridges at once you may lose quality in the replacements. This also depends on the location where the cartridges are stored: by keeping cartridges in dry and dark environments, away from temperature variation, you will be able to keep more in storage.

Abstract numbers about expiration dates and storage temperatures mean nothing without knowledge of the speed with which you use each printer ink cartridge. Home users may only expend a single cartridge every few months, where a medium sized business may need replacements on a weekly basis. Try tracking the time it takes to empty an ink cartridge in normal use, and make a chart so you know when to go out and buy more ink, leaving enough time for any unforeseen complications along the way, like large print jobs or ink shortages in the stores.

While these two previous considerations seem to cast doubt on the ease of stocking up on ink cartridges, the most important thing to think about is your productivity. You should always have backup ink for multiple reasons. First, while it seems obvious, without ink you can not print, and if you do not have a backup, you will waste time and money to rush out and replace them, particularly if the deadline of a presentation approaches and your printers have run dry. Second, some printer cartridge types could have electronic or mechanical failures, and a perfectly new cartridge may simply stop working, necessitating replacement. By carefully considering these points, you can make an informed decision about the amount of ink in your home and business, and keep yourself from running out of ink - one of the biggest annoyances in the modern workplace.