You’ll find no shortage of absurd stuff in Walmart, but one woman from Lexington, Kentucky, found something a little too absurd both logically and financially. It appears Walmart is now guilty of ridiculous printer ink pricing, where purchasing the whole printer set (with ink included) is now cheaper compared to just purchasing the ink refill pack.
The rather questionable business model was brought to light by TikTok user Julie Jensen, aka life.styled.withjulie. The TikToker went to Walmart early in December to purchase a pack of refill cartridges for her Canon printer, only to find that the once $40 ink cartridges are now double at $79. Strangely enough, the printer with an ink set included only costs $64, and it appears Julie doesn’t really want to purchase a whole new printer just to refill her old one’s ink.
“This is crazy… this is the ink that I use, and the last time I purchased it, it was like $40. It is now $79 for this ink, okay?” says Jensen. She then walks over to the aisle with the exact Canon printer she uses and reveals, “This whole printer is $64, so it’s cheaper to buy the printer than just buy the ink.” The kicker is that Walmart’s online price for the ink is only $33.
“This does not make sense to me,” claims Jensen. While she tried to get the Walmart customer service to honor the online pricing for the ink, they didn’t want to. Apparently, Walmart wanted Jensen to purchase the ink online and not in the store, which explains the 240 percent price markup. “Mind-blowing. So now I’m gonna buy a whole printer to get some ink and save $8. This makes no sense to me. America’s crazy, we’re all crazy,” rants Jensen.
People online agree
Turns out Jensen’s worries about how printer companies and their partner stores do business have been a common thing for the past few decades. More often than not, buying ink refills is more expensive than purchasing a whole printer with an ink set. “This has been a common experience for years. It has never made sense. A lot of printers wind up in the trash because of this,” explains a commenter.
Planned obsolescence is certainly a business model, and something all too common for printers, and even creeping ever so steadily into smartphones. Another person, however, explains that it’s cheaper for Walmart to sell ink online than to transport it into the store and allot precious shelf space for it, seeing as the ink online is only half the price of the actual new printer.
Regardless, some of Jensen’s viewers are implying that two can play that game, and even advised her to buy the printer and then return it, using only its starter ink set. “Buy the printer for the ink and return it saying it didnt come with the ink 😂,” advises a clever TikToker. Of course, others have pointed out just how wasteful this kind of business is, given how long it’s been going on, “It’s all so damn wasteful,” with another saying, “Should be illegal!”
