It's not easy to get good tattoo equipment. The problem with finding it is the same one that haunts any professional occupation: there are a limited number of suppliers out there, and one really needs access to good information about their products before one feels safe buying them. Hurrah for the Internet, then, whose original incarnation as a source of free data on anything and everything is still going strong when it comes to purchasing advanced kit from the right people.
The great thing about the Internet is that one can research what makes good tattoo equipment before one even starts looking for the actual things one needs to buy. That means one can get on to tattoo supply sites armed with a foreknowledge of the kinds of things one needs to look for, if one is to get hold of the right stuff at the right price. One can also compare prices across the better sites to get a real idea of the going rate for, say, a needle cluster or a set of swabs.
Tattooing, of course, is a delicate procedure. It's pretty much a medical undertaking, requiring disinfectant, clean kit, needles - when one performs a tattooing one is, to some extent, operating on the client's skin. In today's happy age, getting excellent tattoo equipment from a reputable site is of paramount, indeed unavoidable, importance. Failure to research the right kit from the right places can result in a lot more than just poor quality stuff - it could mean damaging a customer in some way. And that's not something any business can really survive.
Example: what's the European standard for tattoo ink pigment? Anyone who doesn't know, needs to know, if they're not wanting to find themselves injecting (remember, tattoos involve injecting ink subcutaneously) inferior and possibly unsafe products into their clients. A good site will clearly show that its tattoo equipment is not only safe for use but conforms to any area-specific standards for the product in question.
There's an extra benefit in online shopping that regular (i.e. high street) purchases aren't covered by. UK law on e-commerce is so strict that very few sites (certainly no obviously reputable sites) dare to try and get around it. One of the most solidly enforced e commerce laws of all relates to the return period and reason for return given for any product sourced and bought online. Offline, companies can refuse returns of non-faulty products on the understanding that the customer must have seen the thing before he or she bought it. Whereas a person buying tattoo equipment online can send the stuff back, no questions asked, for a full refund - because he or she could never have actually handled the item in question before it was sold.
That means that suspect gear, by which one implies tattoo kit that appears to be unsafe or less than totally trustworthy, can be sent back, if bought online, with no quibbles or queries. And that means that tattoo gear sites are far less likely to stock or sell dodgy items in the first place.
Buying specialty items requires knowledge as well as availability. Getting those items of tattoo equipment online means a person can find the knowledge before they buy the gear. And that means safer purchasing - and safer kit.
