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Too often in our economy, we are faced with an unpalatable set of choices, with corporate schemes on all sides of us and no real escape. Such is the case with printer ink and toner cartridges, where the choice is between monopoly incumbents and questionable knockoffs.
Printers are a classic example of a business where the replacement parts can be more lucrative than the hardware, sometimes called a “razor/razor blade” dynamic. Typically, printer manufacturers have a monopoly on ink and toner replacement cartridges, and can charge exorbitant prices that over time outstrip the cost of the printer itself. More competition in this market would be good, but companies work hard to prevent third parties from being able to sell replacement cartridges. Hewlett-Packard’s CEO has even gone so far as to claim that non-HP products inject malware into its printers, which experts find dubious.
But independent ink and toner cartridge makers have a difficult time getting into retail stores; a much simpler way for them to challenge incumbents is online, particularly through the leading marketplace, Amazon. There, the incentives are less toward selling a better product at a lower price, and more toward capitalizing on inattentive consumers.
This is facilitated by a vast third-party marketplace on Amazon that makes it simple for millions of people to sell on the site. It’s essentially impossible for Amazon to know what’s being sold at any one time, and as a result a major counterfeit market, largely produced in China, has sprung up. In the past, brands like Birkenstock and Nike have fled the site rather than see their products continuously knocked off, and thousands of products have been posted for sale that are not only fake but deemed unsafe or banned by federal regulators. In response, Amazon created a Counterfeit Crimes Unit and claims to have seized over seven million counterfeit products from its marketplace in 2023.
These two monopoly problems—user lock-in and unpoliceable, potentially hazardous marketplaces—collide in the listings for replacement ink cartridges on Amazon.
A review conducted by the Prospect found 131 different ink cartridge replacements for home printers whose packaging looks identical to brand-name products for HP, Epson, Canon, and Brother. By using pay-per-click advertising campaigns, these generics can achieve a higher page rank than the brand names.
The problem persists despite the fact that HP successfully went to court and secured an injunction against third-party sellers that mimicked its packaging for ink cartridges. And it’s happening even though Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit is separately working with Canon to prevent knock-offs in another business line.
Customers are therefore stuck, either paying high prices for monopoly replacement parts, or duped into buying what they think are the brand names, which can be inconsistent in quality, according to consumer advocates.
THE 131 LISTINGS, WITH COMPANY NAMES like Ziprint, Ceeboo, Echallenge, and Lemero, are not appreciably different in price than the brand-name products, and often cost more. The packaging looks identical, with the same color patterns and structures—really everything but the brand name itself.
For example, this query for “Epson 822XL ink cartridges” features a variety of Epson-brand and third-party products, all of which look the same. The generic products usually have the word “Epson” somewhere in their online descriptions, since they are replacements for Epson printers. The situation is the same for Canon, Brother, and HP toner and ink cartridges.
Packaging meant to emulate a brand’s design without using its logo can be a violation of copyright laws. HP actually won a federal court case in March against a Chinese manufacturing company called Ejet, which HP accused of infringing upon its “trade dress,” the technical term for packaging design.
The court entered a permanent injunction preventing Ejet from selling anything with HP’s trade dress in the future. The ruling even stipulated what HP’s protectable trade dress looks like; for example, for its XL Series, HP packaging has a “bright green top panel,” “bright green accents calling out text and product features,” “black beveled side panels,” a “vibrant green nature scene showing detailed imagery of a butterfly resting on lush, green plant life,” and a “white call out panel describing features of the ink cartridges.”
Yet plenty of knockoff products are available on Amazon. Here is a two-pack HP 67XL cartridge replacement from a company called InkID with packaging that includes all of those features, except for toucans instead of butterflies. It lists for $54.93 on Amazon. The equivalent HP two-pack lists for $45.89.
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A search for an HP 67XL ink cartridge on Amazon lists the InkID product higher than the HP product. There is a small bit of text with the word “sponsored” on the InkID listing, indicating that the company bought space on this search with an ad.
Amazon and Canon filed a joint lawsuit last year to stop Chinese counterfeit camera batteries and chargers from marketing on the site. Yet there are plenty of Canon ink cartridge replacements being sold on Amazon with identical packaging as their branded products. Sponsored cartridges from companies like Ubinki are frequently higher in searches than Canon’s own products.
One of the ways Amazon has attempted to crack down on counterfeits on their site is by inviting companies to do the policing for them. A program called “Project Zero” allows brand owners to delete suspected fakes and knockoffs of their products. But while giving brands the power to delete competitors from the leading e-commerce website could be seen as anti-competitive, in reality there’s just far too much infringement for any company to keep up with the fakes. And Amazon, which reaps ad revenue from the infringing competitors, has at least a financial incentive to keep a laissez-faire attitude toward the issue.
HP did not respond to requests for comment, nor did its lawyers in the federal court case. Epson and Brother also did not respond. A listing for a Canon media representative could not be found.
Amazon spokesperson Christy Vargas responded after press time to an inquiry from the Prospect, saying that, “In terms of trade dress infringement, Amazon will remove infringing listings from the store.” Vargas highlighted “proactive tools help to identify these infringements,” and said that the company is “becoming more effective at identifying, seizing and disposing of counterfeit products which is acting as a deterrent to other bad actors.”
In the past, Amazon executives have also proclaimed their vigilance. Worldwide director of buyer risk prevention Scott Knapp has said that “we have no tolerance for counterfeits or fakes,” and “if we find them, we shut it down immediately.” But that conditional—“if we find them”—neatly describes the problem. As opening a new store in the Amazon marketplace requires just a few clicks, it would take a small army to effectively shut the counterfeits out.
Amazon chronically touts its success in preventing counterfeit products, including the use of artificial-intelligence tools to help in policing. But it has settled lawsuits in the past over counterfeits on its website, including a 2020 case with Williams-Sonoma, and a 2021 case over cashmere items.
It’s hard to know what an equitable solution to this would be for customers. Banning all competing ink cartridge replacements would just grant a monopoly to printer companies to raise prices. Yet there’s no real competition on price with these third parties on Amazon; they merely try to capture the inattentive consumer by purchasing better “shelf space” through search ads and trying to trick people into thinking they’re buying the name brand. And there is a somewhat legitimate question about the quality of these third-party products, mostly from Chinese companies.
The inescapable conclusion is that consumers habitually swim through a tank of sharks when making ordinary purchases, and that this explains some of the anger and frustration that emerges in public opinion polling about corporate power.
This story has been updated with a response from an Amazon spokesperson.
