The annual FASTSIGNS® International Convention is a great opportunity for independent and franchise owners to share success stories, and this year’s event will be no exception. When it takes place January 23-26 in Las Vegas, it will mark the fifth year since the TRIANGLE® brand HFB UV Curable digital inks from INX International Ink Co. (booth 313) began making a major impact on the sign industry.
HFB is well respected in the marketplace for several reasons. A high-performance and reliable alternative ink, it is fast curing and offers flexibility and high chemical resistance while reducing chipping and peeling. It not only vastly outperforms OEM inks in most categories, but this premium ink also offers substantial savings to operators using HP Scitex industrial printers – it is optimized for series models FB500, FB550, FB700, FB750, FB900 and FB950.
Evan Lyons, Western Regional Sales Manager for INX, says HFB’s across-the-board benefits ring the bell for the end-users and resellers he works with.
“HFB provides a value proposition of healthy profit margins for both groups. For our resellers it’s ideal for repeat sales in the long run, which is vitally important in our ever-competitive marketplace,” he stated. “For end-users, it’s a more economical solution per liter compared to OEMs. Color performance and our expanded color options are important factors in helping satisfy corporate brand guidelines to match specific colors and density.”
Mitch Roberts, Vice President of Lee’s Screen Process Supply in Stafford, Texas, is one reseller who supports Lyons’ comments. Established in 1950, they have enjoyed enormous success selling HFB since 2017 and are a trusted, go-to source of screen printing and digital graphic supplies. Lee’s has a diverse customer base, ranging from small local printers to nationwide internet-based print suppliers.
“We partnered with TRIANGLE and INX because they are a multibillion-dollar ink manufacturer with a very long history of producing high quality alternative inks. The value proposition of HFB to companies on the HP Scitex platform is seriously impactful from a print quality and economic standpoint,” said Roberts, who has been with the company for 22 years.
“We have converted over 150 clients, and the ink is fantastic, so the clients stay with the product and that helps us continue to grow. We are adding new clients all the time, and we have never had one go back to the OEM once they have been converted.”
HFB is known for providing excellent adhesion on a wide range of digital graphic media. It is also sustainable since the eco-friendly, bag-in-box packaging limits waste. For Roberts, these advantages and other factors are part of the equation that makes HFB successful.
“We sold our prospects on the benefits of using HFB over the OEM ink to achieve a noticeable improvement in color gamut. It also provides a per-box ink savings of approximately 40%, and the possibility of an additional 15-20% savings because our color profiles achieve better results with less dispersion,” Roberts acknowledged. “That equates to thousands of dollars a year. All of these benefits, plus the ink train warranty, take the risk out of converting from OEM to HFB.”
Roberts said the ink train warranty served as a catalyst to convert a customer to HFB.
“We have a large regional printer in Austin, Texas, with two HP Scitex 750 printers. I introduced the idea of converting to HFB for all of the quality and economic impacts, but they were very hesitant because it was not OEM,” he recalled.
“The ink train warranty and formal conversion process with an onsite INX technician gave them the comfort level they needed to switch. Our client is extremely pleased with the upgrade in print quality and significant ink savings, which they have used to purchase more printers to facilitate further expansion of their business.”
