It took us too long (3 hours) to buy a printer at best buy recently but it was worth it! II enjoyed the intellectual exercise of understanding what changed since we bought one 9 years ago…It was not the shopping experience. That part was awful.

What changed:

1. New models addressing refill shopping pain: HP started offering core high end products at high price ($200+) with consumables at low price ($40) that are purchased every 2 years. Ink refill is a pain so I take this as the answer for those willing to let go of cheaper printers ($60) with high price refills (also $60) bought every 3 months on shelfs that are inconvenient to shop at prices that feel absurd ($60)
2. Trade-Off purchase frequency for usage frequency: Product usage relationship: Trade off high frequency purchase relationship for higher frequency usage relationship. My print, scan and fax jobs are done through an app that gives HP insights on how i print, when i print, how often I print, what types of dimensions I print and more. You can argue that this is great wealth of usage behavior to discover unmet consumer job to be done.
3. The Shelf (Online & Offline): Looks like all slow unit sellers (even if highly profitable) are only shelved online and faster purchase frequency products are kept in-store (and online).

Unchanged:

1. Shelf: Digital and In-Store shelfs for printers still looks ugly and confusing.
2. Consumer Needs: What we wanted today were the same things we wanted 9 years ago. Interestingly the comments in ratings & review reflect the same too. We still want a printer that does not take too much space, that the inks are easy to install, that does not take too long to print, that will not make me feel awful when I buy the ink and many more.