Sticker Shock!

I’ve been in Buenos Aires for some time now, so I typically know what prices are and also know what to buy and what not to buy here. Unfortunately today I was thrown for a loop when I went to buy ink for my HP inkjet printer.

Printer Ink in Argentina Costs A TonI walked up to the register with two black cartridges and two color cartridges (I hate running out). When the guy rang me up and told me the price I was pretty sure that I had heard him incorrectly. Over $1600 pesos!

That’s right, the HP 60XL black cartridge was $378.63 and the HP 60XL tri-color cartridge was $430.38! That’s a hundred dollars at the blue market rate and even more at the official rate. Desperately needing to print, I asked the cashier to put two of the cartridges back and then bent over… and pulled out my credit card to pay.

Forget smuggling in iPhones from the US to resell. The real money is in printer ink.

UPDATE: Not worthy of it’s own post, but I just had to buy 8 AAA rechargeable batteries as well and the cost was $280 pesos! That’s $33 at the blue market rate.