7 Scenarios Where OEM-Compatible Printheads May Be Right For You

OEM-branded printheads command a premium, but compatible replacement printheads offer comparable performance at competitive prices.

Barcode scannability is key to getting your products to your customers. Photo by Kampus Production.

Replacing your thermal printhead is a necessary and expensive part of your routine printer maintenance, but does it have to be? Read more to find out when OEM-Compatible printheads make sense for your application.

In a previous article, we talked about what OEM-Compatible printheads are and the reasons why your printer manufacturer wants you to only buy Genuine OEM replacement printheads.

Genuine OEM printheads are replacement parts that are designed to perform with the manufacturer’s printers. The Genuine OEM parts are priced at a premium to pay for the marketing, R&D development and overhead costs of these large organizations.

As we covered in our previous article, OEM-Compatible printheads are reverse-engineered to offer the same level of print quality and printhead useful life at substantially lower prices. The OEM manufacturers would have you believe that the lower price is equal to lower quality.

The truth is, OEM-Compatible printheads give you performance without the fancy OEM logo and custom-printed box. These reputable companies generally have career thermal printer engineers, supply chain experts and commercial representatives leading their organizations without the overhead of the OEM manufacturers.

This article highlights situations where you should explore OEM-Compatible printheads instead of Genuine OEM parts.

Declining Support for Discontinued Printer Models

It is typical for OEM manufacturers to discontinue or sunset legacy product lines as they develop new innovations, offer value-added features and bring new capabilities to address customer needs. Plus, selling you new equipment is always a bonus for the top and bottom line.

The problem is they make a really good product that can perform for your organization for many years with proper maintenance. If you have a printer that has since been discontinued by the printer manufacturer, purchasing an OEM-Compatible thermal printhead may be cost-effective and may be your only option.

Depending on how complex your print requirements, compatible printheads will perform the same in most situations.. Photo by Polina Tankilevitch.

Less Complex Print Requirements

Earlier in the article, we talked about OEM-Compatible printheads offering the same level of print quality as the Genuine OEM products. We still stand by that belief and have data to show you if you’d like to reach out.

Still, if you’ve always purchased Genuine OEM replacement printheads because you believed you had to, take a look at what you print on your labels.

If you tend to print large font, few barcodes or mostly text and alphanumeric characters, do you need to pay a premium for the Genuine OEM products?

Purchasing OEM-Compatible printheads will offer significant cost savings over the OEM brand and will offer the same level of performance and printhead life as well.

Oh, and if you print complex labels with small font, specialty characters, multiple languages and with 2D and 3D barcodes, we can do that, too,

Your Warranty Has Expired

If your printer is new and you have a warranty program that requires you to purchase Genuine OEM replacement parts, you are locked in with your printer manufacturer.

When the initial warranty period has expired and you and your operators have a high level of comfort using and maintaining the printer, you should feel confident that OEM-Compatible printheads will meet your needs.

I don’t want to belabor this point, but OEM-Compatible printheads offer OEM-equivalent print quality and printhead life at lower prices than the OEM brand parts. These cost savings alone are well worth the minor investment to buy an OEM-Compatible printhead to do a comparison for yourself as soon as your warranty expires.

The Economics Just Make Sense

If your organization is a for-profit business, we have a constant focus on the bottom line. Depending on how competitive your industry is, many businesses face pressures to save costs at all levels of the organization.

For consumables like replacement printheads, OEM-Compatible parts present a great opportunity to manage your costs while maintaining the same print quality your customers are used to.

You can often save anywhere from 40-60% with OEM-Compatible printheads compared to Genuine OEM parts.

OEM-Compatible Printheads Are Readily Available Despite the Supply Chain Constraints

The global supply chain has tightened significantly and if you find that your current supplier has extended its lead-times for your Genuine OEM printhead, this is an opportunity to evaluate OEM-Compatible printheads that are designed to fit your printer and engineered to perform as its more expensive OEM brand counterparts.

If you have not been impacted with product availability from your current supplier, it would still be a good idea to evaluate OEM-Compatible printheads. Disruptions in the supply chain have been attributed to labor shortages, port congestions and even weather events. It’s unclear what will cause supply chain tightness or when it will happen, so for business continuity planning purposes, identify one or two reputable suppliers.

You Regularly Maintain Your Printers

Customers who rely on their printer and consumables suppliers for routine maintenance and service may have to buy Genuine OEM replacement parts as part of their service agreement.

If your operators have been working on these printers for some time and keep up with preventative maintenance for your equipment, OEM-Compatible printheads can be installed and start up the same as Genuine OEM parts.

Moreover, your operators and technicians will have intimate knowledge of how your labels printed using Genuine OEM printheads and provide valuable insights on the quality and performance of your OEM-Compatible products.

As history tells us, our customers who have switched to our OEM-Compatible printheads generally don’t switch back to OEM brand products.

You Have Found a Reputable and Trustworthy Supplier of OEM-Compatible Parts

There is a level of comfort buying Genuine OEM printheads because it comes with the same logo and brand as your printer.

Not all OEM-Compatible suppliers are equal. There are many suppliers that use sub-tier parts, provide poor post-sale support and don’t stand behind their product. Some suppliers are fly-by-night suppliers on auction websites and are here today and gone tomorrow.

StickyPaper Company has been in business since 2015 and we work with reputable OEM-Compatible printhead manufacturers.

If you would like our help with an OEM-Compatible printhead for your printer, please feel free to reach out to us on the Contact Us page or sending an email to us at [email protected] for more information.

Originally published on stickypaper.net