Business Profile: Paragon Toner

A Perfect Size Company For Complete Satisfaction

By Jamie Hamilton

Paragon Toner, founded in ’93, is a mid-sized manufacturer of laser and toner supplies.  And, for manufacturing, this is the best size, according to founder and President of Paragon Toner, James Park.

“There are not that many mid-sized manufacturers,” said Park, “Since we are mid-sized we combine the advantages of both small and large businesses.  Large businesses are good because they can meet quantity needs and have a lot of product.  But since the overhead is high—some of them have more than 500 workers—the prices are high.  Small business can be flexible on price, but may not be able to meet quantities or qualities.  But we can do both.  We manufacture 25,000 cartridges a month, so we can meet quantity and quality standards, but we are small enough to be competitive on price.”

Paragon Products

Paragon specializes in high-quality laser cartridges.  Offering a wide variety of brands and cartridge types, Paragon continues to supply dealers and resellers with hard-to-find lasers for printers, fax machines, copiers, and multifunction machines. 

Some brands include, but are not limited to:  Canon, Lexmark, HP, Apple, Brother, Epson, Mita, Okidata, Pitney Bowes, IBM, Konica, Minolta, Ricoh Sharp, Samsung, and Toshiba.

There is no minimum order at Paragon, except on product specials; and drop-ships are available.  Most orders made before 7:00PM ET / 4:00PM PT are processed the same day.  Cartridges will arrive in a two-color box listing the product information and they will ship your product as soon as possible.  Overnight, second-day, and ground shipping options can be selected.  All products come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee.  “Our goal is to satisfy customers,” said Park.

Paragon Quality—New Addition

Paragon has recently expanded its facility to create a quality control division that is separate from its manufacturing operations.  With the added space, Paragon quality control technicians can concentrate on quality testing and not be distracted with manufacturing demands.

Also, new equipment was added that will keep Paragon on the cutting edge of the industry in color quality and manufacturing.  For example, their new central air/dust control system and special color toner dumper system will make manufacturing at the Paragon facility more accessible for workers.

The new equipment will assist Paragon in their normal procedures of print testing every cartridge before it leaves the facility and allow larger quantities of cartridges to be manufactured.

With a now combined 20,000 sq. ft. facility, Paragon is dedicated to not only meeting customers’ quantity demands, but customers’ quality demands as well.

Company History

Paragon Toner was founded in 1993 by James Park.  His father, James Park Sr., was a pioneer of the industry at the time, importing cartridges and toner from Japan.  After his son graduated from college he decided that he would learn to manufacture.

“Since my father already knew a lot about getting products, I decided I would learn to manufacture them,” said Park.  So, he began to teach himself how to remanufacture the cartridges from his home.  Six months later, he had moved to an office building and hired his first employee. After two years in our first office, Young Won, V.P. joined the company as a partner. The company expanded to new facility in Downey and the real toner cartridges remanufacturing kicked off.

Typically dealers, his customer base was located in the nearby region of southern California.  As his customer base grew, so did Park’s manufacturing capabilities.  Now, he has customers nationwide and manufactures 25,000 cartridges a month.  Paragon Toner is located in Downey, CA.

The Future of the Industry

“The industry is headed toward color,” said Park.  “I believe, since the price of color printers is going down and since it is a visual medium, more people will buy color.  Black cartridges will start to decline, I think.”

He went on to say, “It’s like black and white TV.  No one knew what they were missing before they got color TV; they could see all the colors they were missing.  It will be the same with printing in color.”

With the advancement of more color cartridges in their sights, Park said that Paragon toner will continue to satisfy customers and remain competitive as a mid-sized remanufacture.  “We don’t want to get too big,” said Park. “We can satisfy customers best by staying a mid-sized manufacture.”

Contact Paragon Toner:

www.ptoner.com

TEL (Local):  562-803-5522

TEL:  800-861-1333