History of PC Ink

The PC Ink website was formed in 2001 with a basic range of consumables including cartridges for Canon, Lexmark, HP and Epson. The website was basic but quickly added facilities such as credit card payments.

Our very first order was for a couple of Lexmark cartridges following flyers that had been delivered around the local area.

It wasn't long after some customers were confused about whether our prices included VAT or not that we became VAT registered. This made everything clearer and surprisingly the VAT side of the HMRC is actually very helpful!

I had been working in the trade since 1996 in other employment and the internet is something I felt was a desirable way for people to order. These other companies had little interest in the internet at the time and I honestly didn't believe that the internet would become as large as it has! I had wanted to set up this site since about September 2000 but it took until March 2001 to actually launch with my former employers following just a year or two later.

Upon launch, every penny had to be saved. We ordered as few cartridges into stock as possible and regularly re-used jiffy bags sent to us, resealing them with parcel tape!

2003

By 2003, the site was starting to expand in the range of products available to customers. We added brands such as Kyocera and Samsung and expanded the range of Brother and Xerox.

This was our very first redesign of the website. Although it was mainly cosmetic, our blue and orange website didn't contain many pictures or graphics because people still had relatively slow internet connections. Many people actually commented on how fast the site operated due to this.

There was help pages for customers ordering cartridges. Of course this was the time that people were ordering through the internet for the first time and some were not confident enough to place an order without reassurance that their cartridge order was complete and that their credit card wouldn't be stolen and used elsewhere.

New features were added including a track order facility and business was beginning to pick up. It was around this time we got our first national telephone number.

This was the year that Which? Magazine recommended two companies that supplied quality compatible cartridges. We were proud to be one of those two companies featured and we had no idea that they had even ordered from us to test our cartridges.

A number of factors including the magazine feature increased our cartridge sales significantly and PC Ink took on the first employee moving the business from a one person organisation into two people running the administration tasks.

2004

The years 2004 through 2007 saw many brands arrive on the website. Philips, Oki and Olivetti were just a handful that customers began to buy from us.

Orange was replaced by red and a new logo was used. This was really the first time that usability was a major consideration in the design and we hope that customers with special requirements to their browsers can still buy with ease right through to the site today.

Although we added Kodak paper, there were no Kodak printers available at the time. These were added at a much later date.

The start of 2005 was a new start for PC Ink due to the fact we were operating from a new address. This was an exciting time and we hoped the local Post Office staff would be nice. Fortunately they were and when we arrived on the first day, the owners husband looked at the number of parcels and simply questioned us with 'eBay?' with the response 'No, we are a real website!'

We added new suppliers and increased the number of places we bought from which allowed us to reduce prices to customers on a number of product lines. Fortunately, we had a wide range of suppliers because around these years two suppliers were bought over by their competitors reducing two suppliers into one on both occasions. A further two suppliers sadly disappeared into administration, never to be seen again.

2007

Another redesign of the website, however this one didn't last too long at just over a year. For the first time, the website had curved images on it and far more product images were added.

Although 2007 was a quiet year, a number of changes were made to our cartridge line up. We had sold compatible cartridges in green boxes for a number of years and these were brilliant quality with very few ever faulty. The problem, however, was some customers didn't trust cartridges without a brand name on them. A large change was needed and we decided to settle mainly on Inkrite for our compatible range along with Office Basics depending on cartridge availability. Again the quality is just as good, though they are not the cheapest cartridges available.

This was the year that PC Ink expanded into the stationery market properly. A site at officepad.co.uk had been set up in 2005 to sell stationery but this had various problems and we decided it best to shut down for almost a year until we could provide a service that customers expected. So 2007 was the year where we had a reliable supplier and launched the stationery website in full which still runs today, now with a number of suppliers. If you need office stationery, please visit the site.

2008

Another redesign for the website in the year of the credit crunch. We went back to an orange and blue scheme and cartridges were being added at an incredible rate.

It was during this design that Kodak ink cartridges were added as they re-entered the home printer market. The photo printer ink and paper packs had been available for a short while and the ink cartridges were now available too.

Business was obviously quiet during these years and although we would like to thank every customer of PC Ink, we are especially thankful of customers over this quiet time.

A large number of cartridges and ribbons were discontinued during this time as manufacturers cut back on their spending too. The Sharp ZX-2TM1BK and ZX-2TS1BK typewriter ribbons were discontinued and we have had so many enquiries for these ribbons or compatibles but we have not been able to find anything. And we have tried to find compatibles, we really have! If anyone can arrange for Paul Daniels or Harry Potter to magic some up for us, that would be great!

2010

The 2010 site looks like a redesign but it really is much more than that. It is a complete remake with every line of code re-written.

This makes the site far more secure than it has ever been. It made sense to design the site from scratch too. Every product was put into new categories with the manufacturer list down the left rather than 'Inkjet Cartridges' and 'Toner Cartridges'.

We also group products together in search and categories and show compatible cartridges alongside originals to give customers a more informed choice during ordering. More twin-packs of cartridges were added to our inkjet and toner cartridge range and for the first time customers can order printers as well as the printer supplies.