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You may already know that Planet Green remanufactures HP, Lexmark, and Canon inkjet cartridges. But, did you see their new “Press Ins” filters for remanufacturing the Lexmark Black Cartridge at the Recharger World Expo?

Lexmark Press Ins

Remanufacturing a Lexmark black inkjet has never been an easy feat. When the cartridge is exhausted the ink solidifies in a reservoir beneath the filter, and rinsing and flushing the filter itself produces inconsistent quality. The Press In is an all-in-one filter and reservoir unit that replaces the original filter in the Lexmark cartridge so that it can be remanufactured.

To get started, remanufacturers would remove the old filter, gaining access to the reservoir so that the tar-like ink beginning to coagulate can be cleaned out. Now you don’t have to guess whether the reservoir area is clean or not—you can see with your own eyes and visually inspect that it is clean. After cleaning out the reservoir and clearing all nozzles, a Press In is installed to replace the old filter and the cartridge can be refilled with ink.

“Everyone at the show was really fascinated,” says Sean Levi, CEO of Planet Green. “We partnered with R & R Services to create the Press Ins. We expect it to be a tremendous success.”

Quality Inkjets

Planet Green offers resellers 35 SKUs of quality Lexmark, HP and Canon inkjets. They do blind-drop ships, same-day ship, and have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. There is no minimum order with Planet Green, but quantity price breaks are available; see www.pginkjets.com for pricing and cartridge availability. When placing an order with Planet Green, your product will arrive in a four-color, glossy box that gives the cartridge specifications but does not mention the name Planet Green.

For a limited time, Planet Green is also offering new customers a 2-for-1 deal. The company is so confident in the quality of its cartridges that if a defective cartridge ever turns up it will be replaced with two. New customers have until Dec. 31 to sign up for this 2-for-1 program.

“With the bad reputation of quality in the remanufactured inkjet, distributors and wholesalers should realize that--in the long run--buying a quality cartridge will eliminate a lot of future problems and allow their businesses to grow,” Levi says.

Quality Customer Service

When you call Planet Green, there is no automated voice answering system to contend with. You speak to a real customer service representative that is interested in you and how to help your business grow. Planet Green employees work as a team to service your needs and are educated in the remanufacturing process to answer your questions.

“We love to get to know our customers,” Levi says. “There are no designated positions here—no one is just designated to pick up the phone. If I hear the phone ring, I’ll pick it up. We are here to work as a team.”

Since they have no designated positions, office employees at Planet Green are often asked to spend time in the remanufacturing area so that they can gain a better knowledge of the process and answer customers’ questions on ink or how a cartridge is packaged.

Planet Green develops a close relationship with its customers so that they can get feedback on how their product is working in the field. “We care about quality. Customer feedback is very important to our remanufacturing process as well as all the supplies that we put into it,” said Levi.

Levi says when his company gets a complaint about a cartridge, he doesn’t take chances—the whole line is pulled to look at why there has been a problem so that it never happens again. “Why would you continue to sell a product if there has been a complaint?” he says. “That just leads to more problems. We want to fix a problem as soon as it happens.”

“Our philosophy is to be very honest and straight forward with our customers,” Levi adds. “If something is back-ordered, we will say so right away. We don’t want to waste your time or upset your customer by not giving you the whole story.”

Starting Planet Green

Sean Levi was selling imaging supplies as a partner in Universal Data Products in 1995 when he realized that the quality of remanufactured cartridges was not adequate. They were getting a lot of returns, and Levi started dissecting them to find out why.

He researched how the cartridges worked and decided that the only way any company would succeed in the industry was to have full control of the process and the quality. From there he proposed to his partners at Universal Data Products that they should go into remanufacturing the cartridges themselves.

The partners weren’t interested, so he separated from them and opened Planet Green on Jan. 1, 2000.

“There is so much work that needs to go into producing a quality remanufactured inkjet cartridge—the research and everything that is involved is endless and limitless,” Levi says.

“I’m glad I went into the inkjet,” he adds, “because people are wanting something that is compact, that they can put on their desk at home. With large, bulky laser printers you can’t really do that.”

He rented a small unit in Chatsworth to begin his one-man operation of refilling the inkjets at night and selling and delivering during the day. Sixteen-hour days and longer were a normal work schedule for the first year, but then business started to expand and he hired a sales person.

Then in January 2001, they had a break-in. Computers and machines were stolen along with important files and documents. “Every thing they took was very valuable—it was almost like starting over,” he recalls.

But when Recharger Magazine heard about the story and printed a feature on what had happened to Planet Green, companies came together and helped resurrect Levi’s company.

There was no looking back for Planet Green after they got their footing again; they’ve more than doubled in size every year since. Now located in Canoga Park, Calif., Levi’s company has 40 employees and remanufactures around 60,000 inkjet cartridges a month that are then sold across the U.S. and Canada.

by Jamie Hamilton— in addition to writing business profiles in ENX, Jamie writes and designs ads, brochures, catalogs, newsletters, and technical manuals for companies in the imaging industry. She can be contacted at: Tel/ Fax 502-896-1051 or e-mail her at: jamiewriter@hotmail.com.

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