Actually we can speak to our fellow Europeans! many of them speak English but that is not the point. I for one speak fluent Italian and within the pro dig discussion group there are no doubt many German, French, Spanish, Dutch speakers etc as well.
If we were to pool our resources and contact the leading photographic associations in each country urging them to recommend that all members purchase their materials in bulk from the States through newsletters until the manufacturers play fairly then I am certain that Epson and others could be made to tow the line. The bad publicity alone would be painful for them and you'd soon find that shop dealers as well would complain to manufacturers as they start to lose trade. It would also be worth spreading this message to other discussion groups and professional forums to get this matter as much widespread attention as possible. Surely some MP would be interested in taking up the cause on behalf of the tens if not hundreds of thousands of professionals made up of photographers, graphic designers, design groups etc across Europe that are being brutally discriminated against in an extremely underhand manner. Some of you may be curious that since posting that original message a few dealers have contacted me off list and the price has now fallen to �346 including VAT and delivery just from dealers inside the UK. That is a saving of �92 just from having written one email and it tells me that there was a lot of fat to be trimmed off that original price. Can you all imagine what a difference we could make if we applied universal pressure on a European level to all photographic goods!! Lets make a change. We are being robbed blind in a very unfair manner. Do we really feel happy about paying �800 per litre for ink? Many of us are being squeezed in every direction by clients to be as competitive as possible in an increasingly international market but as things stand we don't stand a chance. Ashley Michael Wilkinson 18/2/03 12:53 pm > Epsons UK factory is here in Telford. > They were producing printers but are now outsourcing them from China etc and > locally > have switched to ink production . > I worked out the cost of ink to a lexmark printer using 30ml cartridges. �800 > per > litre > It costs �115 per ink including head for my HP 36" printer and there is less > than 400 > gramms of ink in each cartridge,there is no indication to cubic capacity all > told Its > an expensive game but we work out ink cost and charge the customer accordingly > just > as we did with wet processing. > Equipment costs are, I agree, disproportionatly high in the compared with the > USA. > Perhaps as as part of the EU we should be able to force prices down If we > pulled > together but the fact is we can not speak our fellow Europeans language,s so > how the > hell will that eve work ( Reminds me of the Soviet Union, a union of different > people > that failed ) =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
