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Are Printhead Prices being manipulated ?
Hi everyone, A while since I posted here.
Has anyone else found that the prices of the old Epson/Roland/Mutoh printheads are being manipulated upwards to an astonishing level? 2 years ago or less, I bought some F055090 printheads from an Epson parts supplier. Last week I tried to repeat the order and was told that "As I wasn’t on the "White list" they wouldn’t be able to supply me" This is apparently a scam being operated by Epson themselves to prevent users buying (certain) critical parts. 2 years ago I was paying £40-50 for a head. Last week I was quoted between £176.00 (website) and over £400 (Roland) for a print head! In my opinion a 10 fold increase in price of a part which is critical to my operation is immoral and probably illegal! This is clearly artificial price inflation and may not be operating elsewhere in the world. Business in this country has far less protection from this kind of racketeering by powerful companies than the general consumer has. Has anybody else found this to be the case? Has anybody got a supplier who is behaving responsibly? Or are we just all putting up with abuse by companies who have decided it is easier to milk us instead of making machines that will compete for market on legitimate grounds?:police: Mod-Edit
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6 Replies
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I got quoted about GBP 800 each for the Roland heads….. excluding GBP 400 travel and GBP 100 installation.
To replace the SP’s heads: GBP 2100-00
To Replace the RS’s heads: GBP 3700-00Do both in one go: GBP 5300.00.
Scary. But I’ve run into some bother with the only Roland authorised co in Nambia. They said if I use 3rd party or bulk inks, they REFUSE to do any work on my printers. I’ve been running 3rd party ink for 2 months, and having the first printer converted to Bulk this weekend. The supplier that does this can also supply any parts for my Rolands at way better prices, including the Epson heads.
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This whole Epson ‘white list’ thing is causing problems to me too. I can’t buy DX2 heads from my usual Epson part supplier as my name isn’t on the list. I’ve spoken to the people at Epson who say the list is full and that they will try and get me on it, but I never get any response from them. They are available from Digiprint but again, you’ll have to pay top dollar.
This could be down to the parts being in short supply now as you cannot get hold of capping stations for early DX2 Roland/Epson printers at all now. Or, like you say, they’re just deliberately hiking the prices up to force people into buying newer machines, which stinks!!
Stafford
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I too have recently fallen foul of this situation.
I was told that Epson had reduced access to their head to authorised suppliers only, fairly widely documented on the net, and that this would envatibly raise prices.
Didgi -Print supplies dropped the DX2 head from the Roland spares listings but they did appear as Epson.
Prior to this change in strategy DX2 were £70approx, now they are £150. Roland are listing the Black head as £450 colour £350!!
The crowning glory is ……. the DX2 head has stopped being produced !!Warning .. I did see somewhere that DX4 is going the same way!!
Hugh
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if DX4 is going to be phased out, it will hurt a lot of the sign trade. So how old is this head now? do we have lifecycles yet?
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There must be Thousands and thousands of these machines out there. The technology is well established and the heads are made in China where they are produced by recognised specialist sub contractors. At a very modest price too! I simply refuse to believe that there is any justification for cessation of production at this time. Further I believe from my experience of other areas of manufacturing, that what is happening is a deliberate and cynical manipulation of the "captive" user market by the Brand manufacturer and its associates, This exercise is designed to swing profits on spares way up in order to compensate for reduced sales of the new machines. Many larger, multi-machine users confronted with the "Not worth repairing mate" argument will take the corporate decision to lease new machines (thus artificially hiking new sales and creating a lot of totally unjustifiable waste) Smaller guys like most of us here are being subjected to the "Highway Robbery" tactics common to most large corporations these days (they must teach it at business school) I think its time our industry body began a campaign to raise awareness of the problem of unfair trading by greedy equipment suppliers. In particular I believe that the OEM producer of these printheads should release their proprietry claim on the design and supply of a product if they wish to lose interest in it. Thus freeing the actual manufacturer to distribute through the established aftermarket of repairers and users.
Some come on EPSON please, if you can’t justify the fair price and supply of these parts on corporate economic grounds at least allow the companies than can to pick up the baton and carry it forward. You won’t gain loyal customers by abusing the existing ones! -
Well said Mark!!
I’d be very surprised if the DX4 will be phased out any time soon. The DX2 has been around for a long time and talk of it vanishing has only just started to come to light.
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