Ink Marks

The idea for an ink refilling station came while shopping in an American supermarket.

"Refillers for printers, scanners and fax were being bought from store shelves. Here was a cheaper alternative to buying expensive print cartridges," said ACA Franchising Group founder and president Amable Miguel Aguiluz IX.

ACA Franchising put up its first Ink for Less outlet at Shopwise-Libis and has not looked back since. The company will have opened its 200th ink refilling station by the end of this year.

Most of the Ink for Less outlets are operated by franchisees, who pay a franchise fee of P300,000. The investment requirement can go up to P800,000, depending on the location of the outlet.

Priority is given to the company’s pool of 150 existing franchisees for other business ventures. These are:

* Fix It electronic (85 repair shops which fix televisions and VCRs)–investment requirement of P500,000 plus a franchising fee of P150,000 with a payback of three years;

* ACA Video (140 outlets, with each outlet having at least 10,000 original video tapes to rent out and sell video tapes)–investment of P2.5 million plus a franchising fee of P500,000 with a payback of two to three years;

* PC Aid (eight stores which repair computers) –an investment of P500,000 plus franchising fee of P100,000 and a payback of 3.5 to four years;

* Domeng’s grill (nine restaurant outlets which specializes in grilled food)–investment requirement of P200,000 plus franchising fee of P75,000 with a payback period of 2.5 to three years;

* Cellphone Lab (40 stores which repair cell phones)–an investment of P500,000 plus franchising fee of P100,000 with a payback period of 3.5 years to four years;

Because of the long waiting list of interested investors for Ink for Less, however, ACA Franchising is currently accepting only area proposals where the company deals with one franchisee for a province or territory.

Cheaper

Although the company is positioning Ink for Less as the largest professional ink refilling station in the country, a major market is the homeowner who owns a printer and/or fax machine, 70% of which are branded Hewlett-Packard.

"We are giving our customers a savings option by refilling their printers and toners at 50% to 75% less than the cost of buying new inks from computer shops. Instead of paying, for example, P3,000 for a HP toner, we can refill it for a third of the price or for P1,000. The cartridges can be refilled and read by the computer up to five times of refilling after which a new cartridge must be bought because of regular wear and tear," said Aguiluz.

The inks sold at the refilling station carry a 48-hour warranty against defect or damage such as smudging.

Within the next four years, ACA Franchising is targeting a chain of 1,000 outlets ink refilling nationwide. There are also plans to export the technology to other Third World countries like Bangladesh where there is an AMA school operating or in common trading stores in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand.

"ACA Franchising is the biggest and most profitable among the subsidiaries of the AMA Group but I have never consider the company as a subsidiary. We have always stood on our own two feet," said Aguiluz.