And the survey says...

We recently polled our customers on a couple of questions and the results are below. Note only about 2.8% of all emails sent to customers resulted in a completed survey. I'm not surprised, we're all bombarded with unnecessary email and completing a survey isn't exactly a top priority. Still even if only a few people complete the survey, it's helpful to keep a tab on the pulse of our customers. We had 37 Brother P-Touch printers to give away for people that filled out the survey, and 450 people filled out the survey. Sorry we didn't have a printer for everyone, for those of you that didn't get one - better luck next time! On to the survey...

UPS vs. FedEx - We've just switched to FedEx from UPS and while half of our customers seem indifferent between the two services, those that did have a preference prefered FedEx. I guess we made the right move.

Recycling with "the box" - this one surprised me. To date, we've had very little participation with recycling with the box. We've tried fliers with each "box", but not much success. We recycle so many common items, but most people hopefully are recycling locally. Yet 61% plan to recycle with the box. Hopefully the survey also worked as a reminder that we offer this service and will recycle more and more with the box. Check out our box recycle flier and see all that can be recycled with "the box".

Buying from environmentally conscious green companies - The survey we split 50/50 between those that prefer to buy green and those that buy based upon superior product and service. Luckily with Advantage, you don't have to compromise. We are green and we provide the best products and service!

That's it for our survey. When we email our customers we really try to make sure we have something of value or an offer of value, because we know you are inundated with unwanted email. Thanks for being one of our valued customers!

HP Toner / Free Gas Card Offer

Receive a $15 American Express^® Fill-it-Up Gas Card^® With The Purchase of TWO OF THE SAME HP LaserJet Toner Cartridges!

(limit 5 gas cards per order)

Valid through Friday June 12, or while supplies last, receive a $15 American Express Fill-it-Up Gas Card with the purchase of ANY two HP LaserJet Toner Cartridges. Limit five (5) gas cards per order. Offer valid for both color and monochrome HP toner cartridges.

Just place your order online or by phone and

receive 1 $15 Off Gas Card for every 2 HP brand toner cartridges you order.

Order online at www.advlaser.com or call us at 800-722-2804.

Buying a Laser Printer... Do your homework!

These days, printer manufacturers are practically giving away printers. For instance you can buy an HP P1005 laser at Costco for $49.00 (This includes a $80 instant rebate from HP). They will sell you toner cartridge for about the same price.

The days of disposable laser printers has arrived. It used to be inkjets were disposable, not laser. Color laser printers are now dipping below the $400 level as well. But before you go out and buy a laser printer, you might want to do some research into how much it will cost to print per page.

Just like when Gillette send you the latest Mach 5 razor (now with 5 blades instead of 3) - better grab your wallet, because that free razor takes $4 blades. You get the point.

The good thing about HP monochrome printers is that the printers comes with an all-in-one cartridge, meaning there is only one cartridge. Some other manufacturers will tout how inexpensive their toner cartridges are, but neglect to mention that for every 3 toner cartridges, you'll have to buy a drum unit. Panasonic, Okidata, Brother all use this concept. So do the research and don't get burned. The printers that use multiple cartridges are not necessarily bad and sometime can be less expensive, but unless you do the research, you won't know. I've had customers call looking for a drum unit for a printer they only paid $200 for to find out the drum unit was $250 -they were not happy. All-in-one cartridges are easier to troubleshoot when you do have problems, and tend to make more sense to remanufacture.

Color laser printers are even more tricky to compare. At the bare minimum, your color printer will need 4 toner cartridges, and many of them will have a drum unit for each toner cartridge, so now you're looking at 8 cartridges.

Here's an average example an HP 3600n costs $399 (shopping.hp.com), a set of cartridges (4) costs $522.96. The 3600n with cartridges is less expensive than one set of toner cartridges for the unit. Crazy! and HP is actually better about this than most manufacturers. So you might think, each time my printer runs out of toner, I'll chunk it and buy a new one. From an environmental perspective, this would be just wrong, but HP also has another trick up their sleeve - the printer comes with a "starter" cartridge. Starter cartridges typically print only half as much as the cartridges that you would buy on the street. In reading about printers from HP, they don't mention this anywhere that I could find, but we see it all the time. Lexmark has been doing this for years, and HP only recently adopted this ploy.

Do your research before you buy. We always recommend HP printers over any other brand. We've found HP the most reliable and the easiest to source parts and supplies.