Editor’s note: As our Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Eclipse Ventures, Ben brings a founder’s perspective and his passion for hardware design to our discussions. Here, he continues his smashingly popular product-teardown series.

There’s a single product category that is universally despised by nearly every technology-using human on Earth: the printer. While I’ve certainly had my fair share of disagreements with printers over the years, I’ve come to be increasingly curious about a set of intersecting qualities that don’t seem to exist anywhere else:

Technology. Printers are surprisingly complex machines. Manipulating 70 micron thick pieces of paper and accurately applying permanent ink is among the most sophisticated pieces of physical technology in the average home. Cost. Consumer inkjet printers (even ones with scanners and copiers) are dirt cheap. Like sub-$50 cheap. For context, shipping them is usually more expensive than buying them. 🤯 Hatred. I’m pretty forgiving of technology but even MY heart rate rises the second I realize something needs to be printed. In my anecdotal conversations, this is true for approximately 10 out 10 humans.

As with any product that doesn’t quite make sense, the best way to understand is to take it apart. With my startup hat on, I’m always wondering why a small company hasn’t yet been able to unseat the big players in the printer space (Canon, Brother, HP, Epson, etc.). This post makes it clear why that is so very difficult.

Shopping for a Popular Inkjet

Whenever I tear down a product (I have a bit of an addiction), I start with scouring eBay for broken versions on the cheap. But this time, I ran into a curious problem.

I started with looking at popular, low-cost color inkjet printers with good reviews on the various tech-review sites. I landed on the Canon PIXMA MG3620. MSRP is $79.99 but retailers (even Canon’s own site) sell it for $49.99. Not bad. Off to eBay to save a few bucks on a broken one!

On first pass, the used/open-box PIXMAs are as cheap as expected ($10–25) but I started noticing a curious pattern:

This is not necessarily an earth-shattering revelation, but it begins to reinforce the picture of a very bizarre set of economics where the printer itself is significantly cheaper than the cost to ship it. Whelp, off to Amazon for a brand new printer for half the cost thanks to free Prime shipping.

Teardown

The new printer arrived in all its glory. Right off the bat there’s a handful of (sometimes) costly items that products in this price point don’t always have to contend with:

Large, full color corrugated box

Six large, molded polystyrene shipping bumpers and other sheets of shipping material

Two inkjet cartridges (one color and one black)

Accessories: USB cable, CD-ROM (can’t believe they still include these), several bound manuals, power cord

Lots and lots of packaging trinkets (little molded and die-cut pieces of plastic, wire ties, etc.)

While it’s always hard to estimate BOM (bill of materials) costs here, it would shock me if these items were less than $10 (25 percent of price I paid).