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this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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Technology
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I'm sure internally they have an internal dollar figure on cost per customer acquired. Such things as marketing, discounts, product availability and different stores, targeted marketing campaigns, B2B sales reps, I.e.identifying corporate customers before they are entrenched with another vendor and actioning on them first.
So in that mental model, each customer acquired has a cost, and the behavior of that customer has a benefit, I suppose what the HP representative is trying to say is the sale on the printer by itself is insufficient to justify the effort and cost of acquiring a customer. They want recurring revenue. Which everybody does
Yeah, it’s the "loss leader" strategy. Some HP printers are very cheap, sometimes cheaper than the cartridge you need to put in it. They’re doing it ridiculously aggressively.
I wonder whether they'd sell more if they put the prices up but promised no further charges or restrictions? It would give them a unique market position as a seller of premium trustworthy products. Brother is the closest to that at the moment, though their printers aren't even more expensive. HP is certainly to be avoided.
If you cared about price per sheet and you print a lot, then you'd have a better printer than an ink jet.
HP pulls this shit because that business model works for people who need to print a little.
Ink jet cartridges dry up when they’re not used often enough though, which screws people who don’t print much as well. HP just screws everyone equally.
I had a printer from HP but rarely had to print anything. It happened way too often, that I had to buy a new cartridge, because the old one dried up. Soo annoying... Now I have a laser printer from brother and it's much better! No more drying up! I guess this is more about technology than it is brand, but it somehow was fitting here😄
I'm talking about the difference between using an ink-jet or something more expensive like a laser printer.